CHILDREN’S MUSEUM : Adventure in Store : A storefront near the center of La Cumbre Plaza in Santa Barbara offers youngsters an imaginative interlude.

If you’re up in Santa Barbara with the kids, there’s a new spot just for inquiring young minds.

The Children’s Museum of Santa Barbara opened last May in La Cumbre Plaza, the shopping center at the north end of town. It’s operating out of a storefront near the middle of the mall.

The cost is $2 for adults and $1 for children. Although it would be tempting, parents are not allowed to drop off their kids and shop.

The museum is still sparsely furnished, but you will find enough stuff to entertain your child for an hour or two. The most original attraction is a cave that looks like a geodesic dome, all covered with burlap. The inside walls are made up of chalkboard, and kids will find lots of chalk, erasers or just big pillows for escaping from it all.

The museum has other unique touches. One of the first things kids see is a framed mechanical contraption on the wall. Switch it on and little balls, propelled by a bicycle chain, make their way through a maze of metal. Even adults stand and gaze at the gizmo.

Kids will find some of the standard children’s museum fare. They can try on firefighters’ gear, including jacket, boots, hats and giant rubber gloves. They can examine a fire extinguisher and a fire hydrant. Nearby is a disconnected pay telephone so they can practice calling for help in an emergency.

They can lie back in a real dentist chair, and at the “doctor’s office” they can try out crutches, a stethoscope and a scale for weighing babies. There is a real U.S. Coast Guard rubber raft they can crawl around in.

One of the most popular exhibits is a simple giant bubble maker. Kids stand in the center of a large tire split in half and filled with liquid soap. They pull a cord and a hoop encircles their bodies with a huge bubble.

There are other activities and exhibits with a scientific twist. Kids can sit down and operate what looks like a rowing machine to see how a human generator can provide electric power.

They can see how mirrors can fool you into believing you can reach out and touch something--in this case a strand of red beads. They can use a harmonograph to draw giant circles of varying shapes.

The museum sells a few educational items. The best buy is a white T-shirt with a dinosaur on the front that sells for $5. Children can sit at a worktable and color the dinosaur with markers that withstand washing.

The museum is the brainchild of Gordon Gibbons, who designs and builds adobe homes in the Santa Barbara area. He began working on the project in 1988 when he teamed up with two women who are no longer involved with the museum.

“I had a need to put something back into the community,” he said. His hope was to provide children with activities that they wouldn’t find at school but would face in the everyday world.

Using $3,000 to $5,000 of his own money, he put together a pilot museum that opened in the mall during the summer of 1990.

“We had 28,000 people,” he said. Convinced that a museum would be successful, he closed down the pilot project and reopened the museum with a full-time director last May.

Because of the sluggish economy, the mall was willing to provide free space for the museum. It’s open seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum will move to a new retail spot at the mall next month. It will close Feb. 17 and reopen March 17.

“It will have a new, improved look,” he said. “Everything will be upgraded.” New activities will be added, he said, including a stage and dress-up area.

Already a number of Santa Barbara businesses and individuals, including several architects, have donated time and skills to the museum, he said. Fund-raising efforts are planned. So far, 120 people have paid $25 to become members of the museum.

Local architects are sponsoring a competition to come up with an “interaction sculpture” that would become the centerpiece of the museum. Cash prizes range from $100 to the grand prize of $500, plus the commission to develop the winning design. The winners will be announced Feb. 29.

* WHERE AND WHEN

The Children’s Museum of Santa Barbara is located in La Cumbre Plaza. Take the Hope Avenue exit off U.S. 101. The museum is open daily from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost is $2 for adults and $1 for children. For information, call 682-0845.