Back in the 80s, when I lived near Sausalito, one free Saturday I visited the US Army Corps of Engineers Bay Model. It is a huge and incredible scale model of the hydrology of the whole Bay Area and a part of the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta. It is larger than a football field. The day I visited there was almost no one else there and I got a leisurely two hour tour.
I have read that, today, it is very popular with long lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Corps_of_Engineers_B...
It covers 200 acres (~80 ha), vs 1.5 acres for the Bay model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River_Basin_Model
If you have an interest in going (I've never been despite growing up in the area and having family there still), I would advise waiting for cold weather - it is perfect snake habitat, and water moccasins are both venomous and relatively aggressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DEIWOKCIA to see a walk around and build of the diorama.
It probably felt brighter and more vivid at the time, because we were seeing it under our mental-white balance of fluorescent lights and comparing it to nicotine-pantinaed older materials. Today in our mental white balance model, we have titanium-white plastics and “cool-white” LEDs that didn't exist then
michaelbuckbee•2mo ago
Adam Savage review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD8r1UBwLL0