June 4 - Back on the east side of the Hudson, I went into Beacon to ask where their Station No. 1 was located. This office has a beautiful lobby mural with maps of New York, Dutchess County and Beacon. They told me the station was just up the street. I found the woman who runs the station to be very uncooperative, but eventually got from someone else in the pharmacy that they used to have a Station No. 1 postmark, (I knew they did, as I have an example of it in my collection) but it was broken and the only one they had now just said Beacon. Nobody would give me a postmark, though. They had no sign whatsoever, and I wanted to be sure they weren't just a store that resells books of stamps.

I also visited Castle Point, which I had been unable to find once before. It is located inside the Castle Point Veterans Administration Hospital.

June 5 -- Started in Brewster, where I intended to ask at the main office where Station No. 1 is. The main office had moved since I was last there, and when I finally got some directions to the post office, they took me to the next town south. Eventually, I did find the new main Brewster office, several miles out of town in an office park, and found out where Station No. 1 is. It's directly across from the old post office in a small drug store. They still don't have their own postmark.

In Stamford, Conn., I finally got to Station No. 2, now designated CPU #2 in the postmark. I'd looked for it twice before, but with either obsolete or incomplete address information. From there I went to Station No. 1 in Norwalk, which I'd been to before. This time I found the clerks slightly less uncooperative, and I was able to get three postmarks. Last time they wouldn't give me any, and this time they wouldn't do all 10 or 12 of my cards. However, at least I got SOMETHING!

June 6 -- Came back into New York and went to West Redding and Redding, which have allegedly changed names to Redding and Redding Center, respectively. Still no changes in the postmarks. West Redding is the delivery post office for the area, and the clerk's story there is that people would use the Redding Zip code on mail that was actually delivered from West Redding, so in the ZIP code directory they changed the names.

At Redding, the postmaster's story is that she was never notified of a name change, and that the one time she sent in her financial reports as Redding Center, she was told later that she hadn't sent in any reports. So as far as she is concerned, it's still Redding!

In Milford, a huge new main office building has been built, away from downtown. The old main building is now the Downtown Station, and has Downtown Station postmarks.

June 9 -- Today I completed the state of Connecticut! I have been to every single post office in the state that I know of.

June 10 -- Went into eastern New York, from northwestern Connecticut. Stopped at several Connecticut places I've been before, including Hotchkiss School, an exclusive prep school with a post office on campus that wasn't open when I stopped by. It was the third time I've been there, and the second time my timing was off.

In Poughkeepsie, I went to the two contract stations I'd missed before. Station A is at Vassar College and Station B is at Hudson River Psychiatric Hospital. Both campuses have a lot of old brick buildings, but somehow Vassar seemed like a much more pleasant place to live.