Photo-A-Day #4600

Today was a really incredible day. Kia brought me out to California and put me up for two nights at the Garland Hotel so that I could learn about and then drive the new Kia Stinger. My travel expenses were provided. Opinions of this experience are 100% my own.

I have been waiting for my chance to drive the new Kia Stinger. I’ve actually been waiting for the chance to even see it up close. this is a beautiful car. I would not understand just how beautiful until I got out on the road. I would get my chance today. After a tasty breakfast, complete with an omelet bar, had a very informative session about the car and then we picked our car and headed out on our day’s adventure. I say our because I was paired up with Tessa Smith from Mama’s Geeky. We took turns driving our red Kia Stinger through the twists and turns of the Angeles National Forest.

We drove all around these roads and then headed to Six Flags Magic Mountain where there were food trucks and an Autocross set up. There were a bunch of Kia Stingers and also other cars that we could compare. I will be writing up my further impressions of the car in a future post. For now I have a video where I was driving on the Autocross.

Photo-A-Day #4599

I arrived in California today. It was a long flight but everything worked out great. I watched a bunch of movies and shows on my iPad. I love that I can easily download shows from Netflix and the Stream app. I was able to catch up on a couple of shows on the DVR.

When I arrived in California I was picked up by George. He was a really good driver. I had an excellent conversation with him, that made a great start to this adventure. Then I arrived at the Garland Hotel and it was a beautiful place. I got my package from Kia including my nametag and list of movies and events and more. Every detail was seen to. Every detail. There was a hospitality suite where they had some tasty treats. There were also great tunes and fun things to do including a special coloring contest. I worked really hard on mine but in the end I messed up and decided to just cover it with rainbow pom poms. But it looked so much like the winner from the previous wave. Almost a complete knock-off.

Dinner was really fun. There were several stations with themes based on 70’s movies. There was a station for Chinatown, Jaws, Willy Wonka, The French Connection and The Godfather. There were many really good things to eat, too. They even had a live band playing.

The Garland has a screening room and they were playing episodes of The Brady Bunch. I watched the “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” episode. The Garland is right around the corner from the actual Brady house. They were also showing 70’s movies and I did try and make it through Close Encounters of the Third Kind but I was way too tired. I got about 3/4 of the way through but my eyes would not stay open. I had to get some shut-eye for tomorrow’s road testing of the Kia Stinger.