Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am not fond of cold weather.

I have always blamed it on being born and raised in the San Diego, California, area. San Diego, as many folks have heard, probably has the most temperate year round climate in the continental United States.

Note that I said “year round.” Places like Arizona and Florida might have warmer weather in the winter, but they can be miserable in the summer.

But for perfect weather all during the year (not so cold in the winter, not so hot in the summer) it is hard to beat my first 14 years of life in Spring Valley, California, which is near La Mesa and El Cajon, and is basically a suburb of San Diego.

You might also be thinking of pointing out that Hawaii probably has way more ideal weather year round than does San Diego.

True. But you will note that I wrote “in the continental United States.” While Hawaii is our 50th state, it is not in the continental U.S.

And if we want to get real technical, Hawaii was not even a state for the first nine years that I was living in the San Diego area. For you youngsters out there who may not know, Hawaii became our 50th state on Aug. 21, 1959.

But back to the discussion of my not liking cold weather. As you have by now probably guessed, this column is about the extreme frigid weather we have been putting up with this past week.

It was a week with actual temperatures in the teens and even twenties below zero, wind chill temperatures (now called feel-like temperatures) as low as in the negative 30’s and maybe even lower. There were many days without the temperature getting above zero.

Yeah, it was a cold week.

When I was 17, I moved to Minnesota. I didn’t go willingly. That winter Minnesota saw record snowfall and was renamed Minne-Snow-ta. There have been plenty of other nasty winters in Minnesota over the years, with either tons of snow or bitter cold or both. I remember one year where the school was closed most of January except for a couple of days.

But, then, there were a few years when I headed for the frozen tundra.

Five years after I had moved to Minnesota my new bride and I moved to North Dakota and learned what real winter could be. Blizzards that last for days and the power going off for three days or more at a time. Wind driven snow that created massive, very solid drifts of snirt. In case you don’t know, snirt is a combination of snow and dirt, and it creates black snow banks that can’t be shoveled without a lot of hard work.

And North Dakota gets cold. Really cold. The morning I drove my wife Pam the 70 miles to Fargo to have our first child, the thermometer was at minus 24 actual temperature. I can only guess the “feels like” temperature of that day.

A year later, when our son turned one year old, we celebrated his first birthday in Hawaii. He, however, wasn’t there. He was back in Minnesota with his grandpa and grandma.

That was a trip where we endured a 100-degree temperature drop in one day. It was 85 in Hawaii when we left, and minus 15 when we landed in Minnesota.

We have tried to go south somewhere every winter of our 50-plus years of marriage. We have done multiple trips to Texas, Arizona, Florida and Mexico. Three times to the BVIs (British Virgin Islands) once to the Bahamas. There was that one trip to Hawaii I already mentioned. And a couple of times we traveled back to my home area of Southern California.

I think getting away, even if just for a week, is what helps me endure a cold winter. It is a break that I need and one that when I return, I think I can make it until spring will arrive.

I know, many of you love winter, and go ice fishing and snowmobiling and skiing. I have tried those things, too. Especially cross-country skiing which I first learned to enjoy in North Dakota.

But still. I like summer. Make that, that I love summer. I can handle the heat. I don’t even mind 95 degrees. (OK, maybe not the high humidity we tend to get in Minnesota). To me, summer feels really short and winter seems extremely long even though both are ‘supposedly’ three months long. Winter can actually start in November and not get over until April. I have seen a foot of snow on my deck in Blue Earth on May Day one year.

So, to sum up, I just have to escape winter, if even just briefly.

That is why I will be writing this column next week in Florida. And I promise it will not be about the weather.