A collection of memorabilia from the Beat era in the back of a San Francisco bookstore.

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

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

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

A glimpse into the lives of the the Miwok and Paiute people in Yosemite National Park.

Under the right circumstances, this waterfall in Yosemite briefly turns a luminescent fiery orange.

Quite simply the largest tree in the world (by volume).

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

These millipedes glow not out of attraction, but as a not-too-subtle warning.

Thousands of turbines whir at at the origin of North American wind power.

This sun-scorched lakebed contains samples of half the natural elements known to humankind.

"Only the devil could play golf here."

The lowest point in North America is home to an undrinkable pool surrounded by fields of geometric salt flats.

Millions of years of oxidation make a drive down this winding Death Valley road surprisingly colorful.

Water of undetermined depth has attracted rare fish and cult leaders alike.

Marta Becket's hand-painted theater in the desert.

A Norwegian-born sculptor created these soaring guardian angels at the entrance to Hoover Dam.

The home studio one of Britain's first independent record producers is also the site of a murder-suicide.

A flourishing garden with pigs, donkeys, goats, rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks, and sheep.

The watery entrance for condemned prisoners heading to the Tower of London is still visible along the Thames.

Six ravens are kept captive (but well-fed) at the Tower of London to prevent the fall of the Crown.

This pump on the bad side of Victorian London betrayed a horrifying revelation about the water supply.

Murals of the wild parties once held on the frozen River Thames.

The John Snow Memorial marks the epicenter of London's 1854 cholera epidemic.