Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

This Southern Californian Conservation Center is home to singing and howling apes.

One of the first skyscrapers in Santa Monica, and a famous getaway for the Hollywood elite of then and now.

Santa Monica's oldest restaurant, decorated with set pieces from the Mutiny on the Bounty.

A New England-style lighthouse along California's beautiful Highway 1 gets a re-do.

The oldest lighthouse on America's west coast no longer needs keepers, yet they maintain the site anyhow.

A treasure hunter's tiny bar, harboring celebrities since 1959.

A charming desert roadside bakery that produces 10 times more bread daily than it has residents in its town.

An alley covered with 20 years of bubble gum.

The decor of this Hollywood movie palace just barely predated the opening of King Tut's tomb.

This quirky UFO-shaped curiosity is often mistaken for the airport’s control tower.

Though the original building has been demolished, these massive bronze doors were saved.

A popular winter vacation destination for migrating monarch butterflies.

Four hundred granite steps were built into this massive rock by the National Park Service.

This dormant volcanic crater has been converted from a roiling pit of magma to a pleasant hiking spot.

Once close to extinction, there is no shortage of elephant seals on the beaches of Año Nuevo State Park.

The blinking light atop the iconic landmark has been sending secret messages for decades.

The show's fictional Korean medical camp was created in the Santa Monica hills.

This former stomping grounds of the most eminent astronomers of the early 20th century.

The tragedy of the Japanese internment camps is remembered here by a stark "Soul Consoling Tower."

Every year, over 25,000 monarchs overwinter in Pacific Grove.

Offering commanding views of the California coastline, this restaurant was a hub for the artists and bohemians of Big Sur.

Coastal dunes, site of buried Egyptian movie set and former utopian colony.

Along a California highway is a kind of Jurassic Park made of metal.