Pleasant Valley Historical Society Museum & Botanical Gardens, Camarillo

We learned of the Pleasant Valley Historical Society Museum & Botanical Gardens via the "Passport 2 History". We visited this the same day as the Oxnard Historical Farm Park and the Reyes Adobe, and this was the highlight for the day! When rating places, I really try to be fair and look at something based on how close they're reaching their potential. Full disclosure... this is a small museum, but I feel like they're really doing their best to make it as good as it can be. For the space, they have a lot of cool artifacts and antiques displayed. Well displayed at that! It goes mostly chronologically and also has some cool collections! They have an extensive collection of antiques phones and antiques clocks. There were some interesting hands on things to do... like we were able to play the organ! They also had an old WORKING telegraph! I've seen these before, but I've never been able to actually use it! It's little things like this that set this museum apart and made me give it 5 stars instead of 4. Disneyland or the Nature History Museum, this is not... but for a free, volunteer based museum... they're really doing what they can to make it interesting. They really had a lot of interesting things! Another reason this gets `5 stars is that it's not just the museum, but there is a cool botanical garden in the back that is a preserve for monarch butterflies and bees. It was actually wonderful! There are a bunch of scattered artifacts back there like an old school bell, a (giant) fruit brandy still, and more. There is a large gazebo and picnic tables, which would serve as a lovely place for a picnic lunch. While we didn't see the bees, we saw quite a lot of butterflies (my preference anyways)!!! Definitely make the trip to visit! there is even a pretty nice playground just a block down the street! Keep your expectations in tact. This is a small museum, but for a free museum, they're doing a great job!!!

A small and interesting museum. It has several nice collection of objects and a pretty botanical garden out back. The whole thing can be taken in in under 30 minutes