Saturday, May 15, 2010

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles - Trip to L.A for Distressed Sales Conference


Wow - yesterday was quite a day of traveling, as I made my trek across this great nation of ours! I started in Richmond, drove to Northern Virginia, then took the Metro into L'Enfant Plaza (across from HUD's headquarter's by the way). Next, I took a Metrobus to the Dulles airport, all in time to get on the plane with 15 minutes to spare. Despite leaving home at 9am for 2:55pm flight, I never even had enough time to eat lunch and was forced to buy a $10 Turkey sandwich. Then, once I got to L.A. I took a $16 Supershuttle to my downtown JW Marriott hotel for Craig Proctor's Distressed Sales (Bank Foreclosures and Short Sales) Superconference.

I got to my room about 7pm Pacific time and was ready to settle down enjoy all that L.A. has to offer, especially since my room is in sight of the Staples Center and the Grammy Awards. Yeah right, I was totally exhaused and got room service dinner, made a few quick real estate calls and went to bed.

What this experience did for me was to make me think about public transit and the relative lack of it in the Richmond metro area. Yes, we have the GRTC buses and 2 train stations at Staples Mill and Downtown, but in the suburbs of Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover and beyond you basically must have a car for each working adult. If I can get from a Mall in Northern Virginia to my hotel in Los Angeles, California without a car we have to find a better way to preserve our Earth's natural resources in the Richmond Metro area.

I'll follow up this blog with other's about the architecture here in L.A., as well as the conference. Thanks and enjoy your weekend!