Ugh. The cold weather is back and I’m ready to hibernate until spring.

Monday low temperatures dipped into the 20s, where they’ll stay for the next several days. As a certified warm weather Texan, I start breaking out the long johns when it dips below 50. I faced ridicule for that from acquaintances and co-workers from Colorado, but I am toasty warm and they are not.

I have never liked being cold. I suppose it was all the junior tennis and annual beach vacations in Galveston. (Cue John Mellencamp’s “Little Pink Houses” — “… and vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico-o-o. Ooh-yeah.”) That acclimated me and I’ve never liked the cold.

I’ve never been snow skiing and honestly have zero desire to do so. The Rocky Mountains are beautiful but Colorado is never on my travel list — because it’s cold. I went to a friend’s bachelor party one year in Colorado, and we went to a bar, then back to his apartment to watch — get this — skiing videos. I don’t get it.

Sure, the summers here get so hot, asphalt can hit a liquid state. It gets so warm, it can feel chilly on days when it only gets to 90.

But I’ll still take that over the cold. The additional garments — gloves, scarves, coats, second pair of socks and aforementioned long underwear — seem as troublesome as a woman’s corset or men’s powdered wigs back in the day. Cold weather is not my jam, as the kids say (or used to say — I lose track).

Cold weather also causes travel and logistics issues. I once traveled to Amarillo to celebrate a friend’s birthday. But icy roads and travel restrictions meant it turned into a three-day stay before a thaw let us escape. Hanging around in a cheap hotel in Amarillo in the days before internet and smart phones is not on my to-do-again list.

Back in 2015, we took our sons to El Paso and our return trip, instead of the normal eight-hour straight show down the interstate, turned into a 14-hour ordeal of slipping and sliding and crawling along. The scenes on that trip were almost like a post-apocalyptic drama with 18-wheelers and cars overturned and jackknifed, their merchandise spilling out from cracked trailer shells.

It was colder than a Polar bear’s toenails, an Eskimo’s outhouse, or a mother-inlaw’s kiss. (Just a saying — mine is a sweetheart.)

When I was a traveling musician, I also witnessed plenty of cold weather and ruled out ever living in the north. We froze in windy Chicago in March, had to hole up in Minneapolis on a weeklong tour break in January, and even toured Norway in February. There, our driver took us down lonely highways with 20-foot snow banks on each side. Interesting experiences, but no thank you.

I know the seasons are necessary. Our grass and trees need a dormant period, our bears need to get a deep sleep. The mosquitos need to take a break. But I’d rather be outside hiking or playing tennis in the heat than being cooped up in the house. Guess I’m too antsy, though I come by it naturally.

So yeah, I’ll take hot weather, and the sweat that accompanies it. Even those days when you might see a funeral procession pull into the Dairy Queen drive-thru for Blizzards.

ken@fredericksburgstandard.com