As a show of peace, a Japanese naval pilot gifted his 400-year-old Samurai sword to the Oregon town he bombed.

This extinct shield volcano is the lightning rod of the Cascades.

A tiny art gallery in Sunnyside helps keep Portland weird.

Home to the only outdoor municipal elevator in the United States.

There's something big lurking beneath the surface of this tiny Oregon park.

No two pieces are exactly the same at Portland's hippo-themed hardware store.

The oldest tofu shop in the United States is a firm favorite with locals.

Hundreds of handmade critters fill this tiny window gallery in the heart of Portland's Alberta Arts District.

This historic steamboat is scuttled just a few hundred feet from where it was built over a hundred years ago.

A botanic garden full of trees twisted into fantastic shapes and positions.

This little slice of the Netherlands in the Pacific Northwest blooms in a rainbow of color each spring.

Entering this curiosity shop is like stepping into a mad scientist's lab.

1920's mining camp and environmental education center is serving to protect the surrounding forest, one of the last of its kind in the Pacific Northwest.

The park preserves a single, rare species of carnivorous plant that spells doom for unsuspecting insects.

Nestled between a college and a golf course, the garden is home to more than 2,500 rhododendrons.

The short-lived railroad town in central Oregon has been abandoned since the 1930s.

While it is not equipped to peer into outer space this observatory looks like it was built on the moon.

Instead of fruit, the branches of this tree are brimming with hopes and dreams.

Gigantic private toy museum featuring among finest collections of antique mechanical banks in existence.

Statues of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Ribsy the dog in the park where their adventures "really happened."

One of the world's tallest, oldest, and most disgusting chocolate cascades.

A sculpture of a salmon swimming through a brick building.

Formerly secret, precariously perched boulders.

The world's smallest park was dedicated in 1948 as the only colony for leprechauns west of Ireland.