Travelers leave tea kettles in a remote part of Death Valley as part of a mysterious, decades-old tradition.

The rocks in this arid basin leave trails of movement behind them.

A massive hydrovolcanic explosion left a half-mile wide crater in Death Valley.

The most magnificent bottle house in a town strangely full of them.

Odd outsider art installations surround a Gold Rush-era ghost town.

Twelve plaster figures inspired by da Vinci's famed painting haunt the desert landscape above a real-life ghost town.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

A store that sells all manner of bones, insects, and animal curiosities.

Dozens of lights dangle from the branches of what may be the brightest tree in Los Angeles.

Furniture tries to escape an abandoned building in San Francisco.

The old Niles Canyon Aqueduct in the San Francisco Bay Area is a bemusing and secret trail through nature for wayward travelers.

This painted marvel is San Francisco's 400-foot ode to urban biking.

Once the site of speeding horses, now home to picnickers and public concerts.

Thousands of crosses and markers for soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan blanket a California hillside.

Monumental sculptures of Patrick Amiot, constructed from debris, detritus, and determination.

A living time capsule of the 1960s Richardson Bay water-front.

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

Odd stone and concrete monuments in the "Poet of the Sierras" eclectic folly garden.

One of the most elaborate displays of Jellyfish is on display at the aquarium.

A celebration of once forgotten materials.

This mountaintop beacon is only lit three times a year but shines like some kind of all-seeing eye.