eternalmd31's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
La Quinta, California

Big Metal Roadrunner

A giant desert bird that once swung music fans at Coachella now has a home in a nearby traffic circle.
Thousand Palms, California

Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve

Hike amid the palm trees that thrive among Southern California's Indio Hills.
Calipatria, California

Salvation Mountain

A hand-built folk art installation covered with messages of God's love.
Mecca, California

Dos Palmas and San Andreas Springs

These lush groves of fan palms rise up like oases out of southern California's Colorado Desert.
Calipatria, California

Davis-Schrimpf Seep Field

Burping, gurgling geothermal mud pots by the Salton Sea.
Calipatria, California

Carcass Beach

At this deceptively beautiful beach, nothing is what it seems.
Calipatria, California

Obsidian Butte on the Salton Sea

Huge otherworldly domed rocks on the shore of a deadly lake.
Calipatria, California

Calipatria Flagpole

Erroneously called the world's tallest flagpole, this landmark is devoted to "good neighborliness."
Ocotillo, California

Anza Borrego Desert View Tower

This historic tower in the California desert promises visitors a "vortex of good vibes".
Ocotillo, California

Coyote's Flying Saucer Retrievals and Repairs

A UFO scrapyard in the California desert.
Jacumba, California

Endangered Bighorn Sheep In Ko-Pah

Catch a glimpse of the elusive Peninsular bighorns right off of the desert freeway.
Scheelite, California

Pine Creek Tungsten Mine

For decades, the largest tungsten producer in the U.S. was located in a spectacular setting in the high Sierra Nevada, with some of the workings over 11,000 feet.
Winona, Kansas

Little Jerusalem Badlands

Once an ancient sea, this landscape of rocky ravines is filled with the fossils of ancient marine life.
Michigan City, Indiana

Mysterious Sinkholes of Mt. Baldy

A chilling disappearance (and rescue) of a child uncovers a geological mystery.
Chicago, Illinois

Ulysses S. Grant Boulder

A strange rock in Chicago marks the spot where a tree once stood in honor of the 18th President.
Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

Witches Gulch

Over thousands of years, this slot canyon was carved out of the bed of an ancient lake.
Rockford, Illinois

Rockmen Guardians

The city of Rockford, Illinois is symbolically protected by a quartet of fittingly stony sentinels.
Detroit, Michigan

Monumental Kitty

This feline raises a friendly paw at drivers barreling toward the freeway.
Chicago, Illinois

Shit Fountain

A giant bronze coil of feces is both a tribute to doggie defecation and a reminder to pick it up.
Flagstaff, Arizona

Roden Crater

The artist James Turrell is repurposing an extinct volcano crater as an observatory to experience the cosmos.
Grants, New Mexico

Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano

A frozen oasis lies beneath the scorching New Mexico desert.
Des Moines, New Mexico

Capulin Volcano

This volcano rises like a giant anthill from the plains below, with a road spiraling up to the rim.
Dayton, Virginia

Mole Hill

One of the last active volcanoes on the Eastern seaboard.
Saint-Pol-de-Léon, France

Les Étagères de la Nuit (Shelves of the Night)

Each of these hand-painted wooden boxes, which date to between the 16th and 19th centuries, contains a genuine human skull.