( Before you go wandering around wastelands, why not read up on guns in the Cracked De-Textbook ? )

Archaeology is defined as "the quest to discover the crumbling remains of past civilizations, then get hammered and blasphemy-hump on top of them like impaired teenage chimpanzees." But you don't necessarily have to earn a fancy degree and apply for expedition funding in order to get your apocalyptic-bone on. Because, as we've shown you once before , you could turn any corner in your home town and stumble on stuff like ...

5 LA-88

Col. G.O. Evans

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LA-88 was built in 1956 and manned by more than 100 soldiers who had the endearing motto "If it flies, it dies." The base was just one link in the "Ring of Steel" -- 16 Nike missile sites that protected L.A. from Russkie bombers in the good ol' days of the Cold War (some say they were higher quality than the Reebok missile bases, while others say they lacked a certain flair).

Pasadena Star News

Conversely, some FILA bit SKECHERed out by the whole place.

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If you're not familiar with Cold War death machines, the Nike Hercules missile packed a freaking nuclear warhead -- which seems like overkill for just "bringing down airplanes" to us, but we digress. Fortunately for those of us who value the relative uncookedness of our skin, the Nike program was dissolved in the '70s, and the site abandoned. LA-88 comprises two main tracts: One side contains a parking lot, a network of water treatment facilities, a creepy utility booth, and a small kennel for patrol dogs --

Natasha Saravanja

The nation's nuclear arsenal was in good paws.

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-- while the other is a burnt-out, tagged-up complex of gutted warehouses, office buildings, twisted metal, and ... oh yeah, actual missile silos. You know, where they kept the nukes. The nukes right next to Hollywood.