After spending a week in January at Anna Maria Island on the Florida Gulf Coast I came back home an started planning my annual March Adventure. For the past twenty years I have attended the First and Second Rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
I usually have the Opportunity to early buy my tickets before they go on sale to the general public. The early buy opportunity comes via E-Mail from the NCAA Ticket Provider, usually something like Ticketmaster.
Well, The email came in October 2018 when I was running around Arizona. The link is usually good for at least two days and the last years link came while I was in the Monument Valley/Four Corners area of Arizona. This area is on the Navajo Nation and just finding usable cell service or Internet is a challenge. I tried several times to order my tickets without success and on the third day I headed back to Flagstaff where I finally was able to get reliable Internet only to find that the link had expired and only public sale tickets were available. After looking a a few of the opening round venues I found only nose bleed seat were available.
So for the fist time in 20 years it looked like I would not be attending the Tournament and began making plan for a March trip that would not include basketball. I explored several options but for one reason or the other, nothing panned out. So I began my March adventure with no real plan. I spent a few days at my moms home and decided to head west on Interstate 40, just taking it day by day.
Once I got to Nashville, I thought about heading south and making my way along the Gulf Coast but soon found that all of the Hotel were either booked or had sky high rates because of spring break. So I continued west on 40 and made my way toward Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Spending the night In Fort Smith I looked the NCAA Tournament Brackets and saw that one of the Venues that I hadn't considered was the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So I looked at the BOK Ticket site and found that some pretty good seat in the lower rows of the upper deck were available. I then looked at Stubhub and found some good front row upper level tickets were available, below face value.
After thinking about it I decided to make my way toward Oklahoma City wile continuing to watch several pretty good tickets on Stubhub.
The NCAA Games in Tulsa would be played on Friday and Sunday. So when I arrived in Oklahoma City I made the decision to purchase the Stubhub Tickets. I then made my hotel reservations for Thursday thru Sunday.
My plan was to tour around Oklahoma City for a couple of Days before heading toward Tulsa Thursday afternoon. But as they say plans can change suddenly and mind did. Thursday morning while driving though downtown Oklahoma City a guy ran a stop light and I T-Boned him. No one was hurt by my car was disable and had to be towed.
I can't say enough good things about Nationwide Insurance. I called them from the scene and in no time they had a wrecker dispatched and an adjuster assigned. Before my car was towed from the scene the adjuster had arranged for a rental car and for them to pick me up from the towing company.
The accident happened about 10 a.m. and by 1:30 p.m. I was at the rental agency picking up my rental. I had taken photos at the scene and texted them to the adjusted and before leaving the rental agency, she indicated to me that she thought my car would be totaled and she would be having it moved to a savage yard in the next day or two.
Anyway, I made it to Tulsa arriving early Thursday Evening and was able to Attend the Tournament. My Nationwide adjuster handled everything with the other guys insurance and kept me posted every step of the way.
After spending Sunday Night in Tulsa, I returned to Oklahoma City and found that My car had already been towed to a salvage yard. My adjuster had already made arrangements for me to retrieve my personal belonging from the car before continuing on my way.
The initial rental period established through Nationwide was for 7-days but they extended it to a total of 14-days. After retrieving my stuff from my car, I decided to head home and start making plans to get me a new car while I still had the use of a rental vehicle.
So I left Oklahoma City in the early afternoon and head back east on Interstate 40. I arrived in Little Rock about 6 p.m. and opted to spend the night before continuing my journey home. I got up a little earlier than normal and crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis about 10 a.m. Putting miles behind me I hit Nashville by early afternoon and managed to zip through downtown with no delays.
I hit Knoxville about 4:30 and made my way directly through downtown with only one slight slow down. Two and a half hours later I crossed the Virginia-Tennessee Line on Interstate 81 at Bristol and decided to have supper at the Cracker Barrel in Abingdon before making the final push home.
I arrived home at 10 p.m. having traveled more than 750 miles in a single day. The next morning I got a call from the Nationwide Adjuster informing me that they had indeed totaled my car and would be issuing me a check for the difference. I was free to start shopping for a new car.
A few days later, my settlement check arrived and I was off to Duncan Honda to shop for a new car. There was little doubt that I would be buying from Duncan. They are easy to deal with and their service department does not try to up sale you additional service and I trust them On April 2, 2019, I picked up my brand new 2019 Honda Accord.Even though having an accident when you are traveling far from home is never a pleasant experience, I must say the way that my claim was handled by Nationwide certainly made the entire experience bearable.
Hopefully I don't have to go through this again as I continue my Retirement Adventures.
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