This museum started by a curious collector is now a place for believers and skeptics alike.

This was the first homestead registered after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law.

In addition to fishing and camping, this spot in Nebraska’s Sandhills is one of the world’s darkest places.

Eastern zen meets Western grit in these four little trees growing out of a rock on Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shore.

One of nature's most well-scheduled phenomenons resides in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park.

Most-visited and most-photographed slot canyon in the American Southwest.

This secluded aqua waterfall in the Grand Canyon is the perfect swimming hole, and the Havasupai tribe's fiercely protected natural wonder.

This 4,000-foot-diameter hole is touted as "the most well known, best preserved meteorite crater on Earth."

Dramatic river bend surrounds a natural red-rocked pedestal.

Canyon walls shrouded in ferns.

"You don't need a rocket scientist to build a steam engine, but we've got one." -Museum docent on the credentials of a restoration volunteer.

The longest burning light bulb in the world.

Named after a bandit and the star of several Hollywood prehistoric landscapes, these sandstone formations are a historical part of the Los Angeles natural landscape.

Not merely a museum – but a whirring powerhouse that offers a subterranean peek into the heart and soul of cable car operations.

San Francisco Bay's ghost town.

A lawless town deep in Death Valley was famous for its riches and death rate.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

A well-preserved example from a 1920s network of airmail navigation arrows sits near Interstate 15 in southern Nevada.

A surviving concrete arrow from a 1920s navigational network is preserved right off a modern freeway.

When in Idaho, sleep in a giant potato.

Sweet Willy, at 30 feet tall, is the world's biggest beagle.

The home for all things Kool-Aid offers everything except a chance to actually enjoy the drink.

This erect, phallic geological spire wasn't always named so domestically.

A six-ton, 12-foot-tall concrete prairie dog is touted as the largest in the world.