At some point in 2025, Damsel and I, along with the dogs, will be travelling in the RV, the purpose of which is to visit some of the places where our ancestors lived and died. Since we both wish to be armed wherever we go, it is helpful to know where our permits to carry will be recognized, so we visit USA Carry to consult their interactive concealed carry maps. After clicking on Arizona and Utah (where we have permits), our map looks like this:

There are 39 states (in blue or green) that recognize our Utah or Arizona permits. Fortunately, most places we intend to visit accept our CCWs. There is one small exception in one of the no-carry states on our proposed route. We’re thinking about how to handle that one, but I’m sure it will work out. Perhaps National CCW Reciprocity will happen by our travel date (not holding our breath).
The other arms-related issue here is getting everything winterized. Today, I inspected, dusted off and oiled up several of the inventory. At this point, we’re about halfway done with them. The (clickable) image below shows my semi-auto long arm and the maintenance setup on the patio atop the Spa cover.
The winterization of the rest of the inventory should be done by next week. That effort will include several pistol-caliber carbines which have yet to be taken to the range (by us). Maybe we will take them out and get them dirty before their winterization.

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of my official retirement. I say “official” because I had already retired ten years prior, but returned to the workforce at another company to continue my career in aerospace. This turned out to be an important step in building up our “nest egg” savings in the new company’s 401K program. I believe we were able to put away about a quarter of our income during those final ten years, with much of the savings “sheltered” from the IRS. That was a good thing.
Having competed yet another orbit around the sun, the total of my years is equivalent to the title and graphic shown. In spite of that rather large-ish sounding number, I am still in very good health with only minor symptoms of arthritis and a slightly under-performing kidney. I still see a dermatologist who eliminates some skin carcinoma from time to time, thus reminding me of my younger days of over exposure to the sun’s UV radiation.
Today’s date reminded me of the dice game “craps” which is popular in casinos worldwide. We are not particularly gamblers, especially at our advanced ages, but reminisce occasionally about things we did in the past which we thank God that we’re now over those days and urges.



