As one beautiful, sunny day keeps following another here in this climate paradise, one question keeps asking itself: Are we smart to be living here — or are we just lucky?

For most of us, it's been both smarts and luck. We had to be fortunate enough to discover this place, and then bright enough to stay here.

And if we bought a house here, way back when houses were truly affordable — not $300,000, which is considered "affordable" now — again, we had to be both lucky and smart, just to be here and to be able to swing the deal.

OK, put away the whip and I'll confess: I liked it better five decades ago, when the total population of Ventura County was about 200,000 — compared with today, with the population pushing 900,000. But I liked how I looked and felt a lot better then, too. Nothing stays the same.

If the traffic seems too jammed here now, here's a sure cure: Head south, and drive the Los Angeles freeways for a couple of hours. The last time I did that, it was a full four hours from Ventura to Huntington Beach — almost exactly 100 miles. Compared with that, Victoria Avenue at 5:30 on a weekday afternoon is a welcome relief.

If you want to recall what traffic here was like in the allegedly "good-old days," just head north. San Luis Obispo County proudly calls itself SLO county, and with the population of that whole county still around 200,000 — a number the city of Oxnard seems destined to pass any year now — that SLO nickname still fits.

There's a marvelous piece of music that's not as well-known as it should be, "California Suite" by Mel Torme. The lyrics include these lines:

Love Santa Barbara,

We kinda harbor a

Soft spot for Monterey;

We are quite sure a

Few days in Ventura

Will make you see things our way.

(Slight detour: By a happy coincidence, Torme's son, James, was scheduled to performed an abbreviated version of "California Suite" with the New West Symphony on Friday night in Thousand Oaks.)

Most folks who live here were lucky enough to visit this area before they moved here — maybe on vacation, maybe while in military service — and once they found this version of paradise, they were smart enough to come back for keeps.

If you've ever been to Spain, you can see how the Spaniards felt like they were "home" when they "discovered" Southern California. (Since history is mostly written by white men, it's a common presumption that no place is really "discovered" until the first white man shows up.) So much of Spain is so similar to Ventura County in climate and terrain.

From the hills to the beaches, including all the fertile farmland, it's really almost poetic that so many California place names reflect place names in Spain.

With gasoline prices still painful and airport security still a hassle, instead of thinking about going away on vacation, why not think about staying here? If you moved here any time in recent decades, you may not have seen all that Ventura County has to offer.

The way to do that is really very simple: Just stay off the freeways.

When you go from Ventura to Santa Paula, don't take Highway 126 — just stay on Foothill Road. You'll drive through miles of orchards, reminding you how this county's country roads looked and felt before so many of them turned into city streets.

From Santa Paula, take Highway 150 — still two lanes — over Dennison Grade to Ojai. But before you do that, turn off the road to check out such scenic places as Steckel Park and Thomas Aquinas College.

Ojai remains more like it was 50 years ago than any place in the county. Where the Oxnard area seems to think that growth is wonderful, the folks in Ojai look on growth as a terminal disease.

Between Ojai and Ventura, stay off Highway 33, and take Santa Ana Road.

If you're going from one end of the county to the other, and you really want to see what this big piece of real estate is all about — just stay off Highway 101. Take Santa Rosa Road from Camarillo to Moorpark or Thousand Oaks, or take Potrero Road and come in the other back door.

It's curved and slow, part of the way, but the trade-off is, you can turn off and see such worthwhile places as CSU Channel Islands — a gorgeous campus that's worth a visit any time — plus Lake Sherwood, surrounded by mansions. The persistent story is that the name came from Sherwood Forest because the 1939 classic film "Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn, was filmed there.

Have you seen all the beaches in Ventura County? Some are still relatively uncrowded.

Have you seen all the county parks? Some have fallen into disrepair — since county officials decided that the county could no longer afford parks, and leased them out — but some are in decent shape.

Unless you've scouted them out, you have no idea how many choice picnicking areas there are in this county.

There are literally dozens of museums all over Ventura County — have you seen them all? You should.

For gung-ho Democrats, a word of advice: Get past partisanship long enough to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum near Simi Valley. Sure, there's a wing suggesting that President Reagan ended the Cold War and tore down the Berlin Wall, all by himself. But there are other nonpartisan exhibits that make you downright proud to be an American.

If you do go away on vacation, wherever you go, you can count on this: When you come back, like it says in the Cole Porter song, you'll have a place "so nice to come home to."

— Chuck Thomas is a Star columnist whose column appears on the Opinion pages each Saturday. His e-mail address is star4cthomas@earthlink.net.