My local post office is about 1.5 miles away, serving the cities of Artesia and Cerritos. It is designed in a California Adobe style, reflecting the architecture of the Spanish Colonial period through Mexican Independence and California statehood. In this style, roofs are made of u-shaped clay tiles that channel water down at low angles. The roofs extend several feet beyond the buiding to provide shade along collonades for people to rest or gather.

Large coverings outside the main entrance provide shade for customers to pause comfortably before or after conducting business.

Indoors there are hundreds of Post Office Boxes in several sizes for residents to receive mail and packages.

As the USPS tries to reduce costs while maintaining service standards, the staffed lobby hours have been reduced. Here you can see a self-serve kiosk to weigh and calculate postage for letters, flats, and small packages. On the left is where letters can be securely posted directly into the USPS bins.

The feature that I use most often here is the drive-through collection box on the small side street where the USPS delivery trucks stage collection and drop offs. There used to be two here just a few weeks ago, but it seems like they've taken one out for some reason. It is not so busy so two cars don't need to insert letters at the same time? Perhaps one was vandalized or tampered with? Who knows! But the USPS keeps on going, through rain, sleet, or snow. But here in Southern California near Sea Level, we don't get much of any of those nowadays!

Here you can see a typical USPS delivery truck. Mail is delivered to each resident's home Monday through Saturday, unless a resident rents a PO Box to keep their home address private. In some residential communities, the postal carriers don't leave their trucks and can hand over the mail to boxes located just off the street. The trucks have the steering wheel on the right-hand side so the driver can just reach over to the box while driving on the right-hand side of the road. In our neighborhood, the postal carriers walk from home to home because the boxes are attached to the walls, often near the front door.