An artsy hidden staircase leads to breathtaking views of San Francisco.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

Eight huge lanterns lining a city street can change color on command.

The oldest house in the capital of Silicon Valley.

Anyone can control this glittery light installation with just a phone call.

A plaque outside the San Jose airport commemorates the insect's arrival to the West Coast.

Historical trolley restoration and operation at History San Jose, Kelly Park.

For roadside fast food, pull over at the giant orange.

A statue commemorate Tommie Smith and John Carlos's brave protest at the 1968 Olympics, a watershed moment for civil rights.

A life-sized mammoth sculpture marks the spot where the remains of a Columbian mammoth were discovered in 2005.

An extensive collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts and mummies.

Seller of surplus nuclear research materials.

A famous flea market artist's studio that's full of odds and ends.

If drivers cross the rumble strip on this stretch of Route 66 at just the right speed it plays "America the Beautiful."

This replica of the Indian spiritual master Meher Baba's tomb stands unfinished in the New Mexico desert.

This abandoned church dominates the landscape of a former mining boomtown.

This sculpture is intended to reset a person’s creativity.

A home base for Judy Chicago, one of America's leading radical feminist artists.

This unassuming layer of clay boasts an out-of-this-world origin story.

The ruins of this former mining boomtown once housed over 3,000 people. Now, the population is two.

A saloon and inn that served the Wild West's most iconic figures—and is still haunted by some of them today.

Once a dining hall for boarding school students, this lodge was a popular haunt for nuclear physicists working on the Manhattan Project.

The oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States.

A small side chapel in Santa Fe's basilica is home to the oldest statute of the Virgin Mary in North America.