I was in Louisville KY at the beginning of the month for a long weekend and my timing hit a cold front rather perfectly with morning lows in the upper 30's which is downright cold for a Florida boy. The thought of sitting in a chair outside, cold and sedentary, for 8 hours per day for 3 days was demoralizing even if the afternoons were going to be OK.

Action was called for but a bit of a conundrum was in play. My Merino wool long underwear (advocated by someone here on QJ > KF or Snowdog perhaps) was in Michigan. I had 2 choices, either buy something cheap or try and upgrade the merino wool I already had dropped a healthy sum on.

Enter in Underarmour Heat Max base layer. I admit to not having fully bought into the Underarmour hype and thought they were mostly overpriced fashion statements but last year I had picked up some of their cool max T shirts and tank tops and found them superbly comfortable (a tank top goes on every canoe trip).

Couple of choices with the Heat Max.......I went for the top shelf 50% merino wool and 50% polyester blend. The more "comfortably priced" Underarmour  set is all polyester is not such a good value IMO. Anyways, this stuff is heads and tails better than my all merino set IMO at about the same price and will be a constant companion at cold art shows and every outdoor adventure henceforth.

I think tops and bottoms came in around $85 a piece (yes, my jaw dropped open to!) at the Bass Pro in Louisville. A word of warning, while the tops were sized accurately the bottoms seemed exceedingly tight. I despise tight fitting confining bottoms and had to move to an x-large to feel freedom of movement. I ended up living in them all 3 days (day and night) and they saved my tush.