Exciting day, the empennage arrived! I've generally had good luck with freight, though I have run into a few times where there's been minor to extensive damage - happily, the crate was completely undamaged inside and out! Old Dominion was the freight company, and their service was great - everything was on time, their communication was great, and my driver was awesome too. For those unaware, this crate is about 4' x 10' x 1.5' in dimension, weighing in at about 300lbs. Our driveway is about 400' long, and the turn is such that it's really difficult for a semi-trailer to back down the driveway, so the truck just pulled up at the end of the driveway - thankfully, I recently purchased a pair of forks for our tractor, which meant I was able to pick the crate off the truck (no need for awkward lift gate antics), and easily bring it to my shop.
Once in the shop, I realized just how big the crate was (and how small my shop is, comparatively) - but got everything unpacked, checked all of the packing paper for any errant parts. As many have commented before, those who pack these crates at Vans are masters of the craft - everything was secure, undamaged, and easy to unpack. Once the crate was emptied, I moved it out of the shop so that I could start the process of inventorying everything (only 7 pages of packing list items to go through).
All in all, an exciting start to the build.