Places SamWPiano Wants to Go

A cave's rare beauty held a cavernous secret hidden underground.

These ruins of a pre-Columbian cliff village are among the most beautiful and well preserved in New Mexico.

This is one really big nut.

Twice a year, visitors can tour the desolate site that birthed the Atomic Age.

Life-sized sculpture of a blue whale made of hand-recycled plastic trash.

A futuristic temple of light uses prisms and rainbows to create an atmosphere of peace.

The old Route 66 town straddling Texas and New Mexico died along with the Main Street of America.

These Pre-Columbian petroglyphs contain representations of birds, deer, hunters, and even some early Native flute players.

A multi-storied adobe complex has been inhabited for more than a thousand years.

A phenomenal assembly of pueblos in New Mexico is the most complete example of ancient ruins north of the border.

The second-largest cave chamber in the world was discovered in 1898 by a 16-year-old and a friend known as "Pothead."

Seemingly grown on some other world, these New Mexico rock formations look like a disused science fiction set.

Explore the largest pure gypsum deposit in the world, and go dune sledding while you're at it.

The land is full of geologic eye candy, such as otherworldly spires, mushroom-shaped hoodoos, and prehistoric fossils.

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

A free, public museum dedicated to the fascinating science of sight.

A raised boardwalk winds through a thicket of stunted, century-old trees no more than nine feet tall.

The illuminating collection of L.A. street lights is run by the city and only opens one day per month.

This one-block alleyway is stuffed with street art that is colorful, cultural, and intensely political.

Neither Spanish settlers nor anyone since has been able to tell who built these strange California rock walls.

Two rocks in a perpetual kiss and one of "the most romantic spot in America."

One of the world's longest murals depicts the history of diversity in Los Angeles.

What began with a single, 357-pound chunk of the Canyon Diablo meteorite grew to be an impressive collection. 

L. Frank Baum wrote part of the "Wizard of Oz" series in this wooden Victorian beach resort.