USPS General Delivery Mail – Success

#vanlife .

General Delivery Mail has that feeling of the scene from Back to the Future.  Doc Brown leaves a letter to be delivered at a specific time in the future knowing that Marty McFly will be there.  Western Union held that letter for 70 years.  The USPS in La Crosse KS could not hold our letter for even 1 day never mind the 30 days they were supposed to wait.

To improve our chances on our second attempt, we called the post office in Alamosa CO to let them know we had a package coming and Daryl said that would be no problem. (Daryl, my other brother Daryl…that did have us worried…)  Bruce marked the package General Delivery and Hold for Pick-up and checked at the shipping post office that it looked good.

We had tracking info and on-line said that our mail been delivered to the Alamosa Post Office at 5:39 pm on Friday night.  A little after they opened on Saturday morning we were there.

When I asked about my package,  Mike said he had it just in back.

We had a month of mail with no real surprises.  And our new Xfinity cell phone that uses Verizon cell towers (thanks Mom and Dad).  Now we can see if Verizon really has better service out in the woods.

So our plan for General Delivery Mail Success:

  1. Find a post office that accepts general delivery.
  2. Call them and let them know you are expecting mail.
  3. Address the box for General delivery with the post office address
  4. Mark the item “HOLD FOR PICK-UP”
  5. Verify with the post office the mail is coming from that it address properly.
  6. Mail it with a tracking number (priority mail – 2 to 3 day delivery)
  7. Track it so you know when it reaches the post office.
  8. If possible, call to verify the mail is there.
  9. If possible, Don’t give them enough time to send it back.

Hopefully this will avoid the, “I don’t who that guy is – just send it back” problem.

Or maybe we can find someone with a Delorean….

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