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We just completed a planned RV trip to PA. Before we left, I decided to go ahead and get a non-resident CCW from there during the trip.

I went to the Lancaster court house to the Lancaster County Sherriff's office, completed my application, paid my $20 and was out the door in less than 45 minutes. In spite of my Texas CHL, they did a background check on me during that time and also took my picture, issuing me the card on the spot. It would have gone faster but I was 8th in line that day. The State gives them 45 days to issue the license but the sheriff decided to handle applications immediately.

I casually asked the person processing my card about how busy it was that day. He responded that it was always that busy. There are about 500K residents of Lancaster County and he reported issuing 50K CCWs. Even with non-residents like me, that seemed like a very high percentage. Spending just a little time in downtown Lancaster confirmed why, however.

One of the items included in our trip was a visit to my MIL's grave site at the Woodward Hill Cemetery. We've been in discussion about significant erosion there over the past 6 months with the cemetery care group promising corrections but never delivering. While we were there, I decided to do the work myself. There was a very large yellow jacket nest in the large crack in ground in the center of the site and that may have been a reason for the lack of effort by the cemetery staff. Three cans of bee spray did little to deal with the volume of bees but I did manage to get nearly 10 cubic feet of soil spread and packed down. Hopefully, that will at least slow the erosion and perhaps eliminated the bee's nest.

The reason that I mention the grave site problem is that the cemetery is in a less than desirable section of town. I had my EDC and spare mag on as I worked. While dodging the bees, I had to keep my head on a swivel. My sweatshirt keep riding up over the gun and I was thankful that PA is an open carry State. I figured that if Lancaster's finest did challenge me, I had the PA license as insurance. For me, it is an example of where having OC as an option is an advantage. If I had been trying to do the same thing in TX, I would have had to do something different about the concealment failures.

Charlie