We took a tour of the La Crosse post office today with MOMS Club. I don't think the kids get much out of these tours since they're held during school hours and so usually attended by the 3 and unders, but I find them fascinating. It's a way to get to see the behind the scenes that you normally don't see.

We started out on the outside where you mail letters. Unfortunately, none of us thought to bring letters for the kids to mail. From there, we went around to the other side where the letters drop into a bin. We followed the path of a letter through the post office and learned quite a bit. Some tidbits:

• The Holmen post office, like all the other ones in the area, just package up the mail and bring it to La Crosse. So mailing letters to Holmen at the Holmen post office doesn't make it go faster.
• There are about 100K pieces of mail going through the La Crosse post office each month with about 85% of them being handled totally by the machines. (At Christmas time, that goes up to 400K)
• "Flats" which is mail like magazines, get processed in Rochester.
• The zipcode is the most important part of the address. Make sure that's readable and accurate. The post office reads from the bottom right to the top left when determining an address.
• The "plus four" part of a zip code is unique to your house.

It was a fun tour and I recommend it if you ever get the chance to tour the post office.

Michelle