I have recently had big delays in shipping or receiving parts through the Post Office.

One was a part that I bought on EBAY. The thing disappeared somewhere in New Jersey for 8 days before showing up on tracking again. I did eventually receive it, but that should have been a warning to me.

The next was a package I sent to a chromer in Tennessee. These were some custom and highly modified parts that I had spent about 4 days getting right.

It's a 14 hour round trip to drive and since Louisiana is such a hot spot for Covid19, some states are stopping visitors from here. Texas and Florida did for a while at least. I didn't want to take a chance on driving all day just to be turned around 30 miles from my destination.

My local UPS shipper has stopped taking packages because he has cut his open hours to about 3 a day due to lack of business from all the Corona shut downs. The Post Office was my second choice, but I had shipped another bunch of small parts to the same place and it took about 3 days to get there.

This package however, disappeared completely off of tracking for over 14 days! The local Post Office couldn't offer much help. They emailed someone internally, but got no response at all. It was insured, but that wasn't a lot of comfort. The money wasn't nearly as important as the time and work that went into the parts.

Then, wonder of wonders, it suddenly showed up yesterday on USPS tracking again and is out for delivery today! I had just about given up hope. I'll call the shop this afternoon and make sure it's ok. Fingers crossed it's not destroyed.

Lesson learned. No more shipping through USPS on important stuff for me! The 14 hour drive would have been a bargain.