Union Oil Museum Visit

We took a side trip while on vacation in California: the Union Oil Museum in Santa Paula.   Santa Paula is a small (population is about 30,000) city about 10 minutes east of Ventura.   Santa Paula is the home to many historical landmarks and movie sets, like Main Street, the train station, and lots more.   If you’re ever in the area, don’t pass this place up.   Head over to the Mupu Grill on Main Street, visit the Union Oil Museum, and if your car needs some engine work, head over to SP Tune-Up Center and say Juan sent you.   Shameless plug, I know, but it’s for family!

Anyway, I lived in Ventura County for about 25 years, but I never once visited the Union Oil Museum.   While we were out driving around, I noticed a big Hot Wheels logo on one of the windows to the museum.   They were having a Hot Wheels exhibit!   They did one on our last visit, but we didn’t have the time to go.   This time around, we made time.   I grabbed my little brother, my little brother-in-law, the Izzy-monster and headed straight on over.

It’s a small building, so it doesn’t feel like they could house much.   Once you walk in, though, you realize how wrong you are.   They have a good amount of items inside, everything from old drilling bits, deep sea oil rigs, oil pump ships, to old time gas pumps and gasoline brand history.   Plus, TONS more.

Space Exhibit

Beyond the main area is a smaller room, called the Iron Room, which held the View from Space exhibit.   The exhibit is good fun.   It’s tailored to younger children as it had a coloring area and lots of hands-on displays.   My brother wandered around the room but was more curious about where they had the Hot Wheels exhibit.   Ciri’s younger brother, on the other hand, was more curious and was like the ball bouncing around the inside a pinball machine.

Hot Wheels

After pulling the kids from the coloring area, we continued on to the Hot Wheels exhibit, which was the highlight of my visit.   I have a small collection of Hot Wheels sitting in a plastic tote somewhere.   I am trying to figure out how to display them without looking too tacky or childish.   Probably a lost cause, but I am going to figure it out dammit.   Anyway, looking at all the little cars sitting inside display cases instantly turned me into a little kid.   There where only five or six display cases (like the jewelry displays at the store) so it felt small, but in reality they had hundreds of cars.   They also had posters, accessories, and more hot wheels.   It was great.   The Union Oil Museum site explains that one collector puts up his collection for the exhibit, but it’s actually two guys that put the collection together.   Maybe when we move back to California I can help expand the exhibit with my small collection.  

The last section of the museum, which happened to be the most awe inspiring of all, was in a small separate building.   Inside this building lives an early-1900′s oil drilling rig – IN WORKING ORDER!   It actually turns on and runs!   It obviously doesn’t pump oil and it doesn’t run off the actual steam engine, but the fact that the rest of it works is a marvel in itself.   Very cool.

So that was our visit to the museum, everyone said they had fun, including myself.   I can’t believe it took me so long to visit the place!   I recommend everyone visit the museum, especially if you live nearby!

For the rest of the pictures I took, head over to my Flickr thingie.   There’s not very many, and they are really low quality because all I had was my cell phone.   For better pictures visit the Union Oil Museum’s site.