The “Break-In” Trip

February 6-8, 2025 — Wekiva Falls RV Resort, Sorrento, FL

We’ve had new cars and new homes together, so we’re not strangers to breaking something in. However, this is our first travel trailer, and there are a lot of new things to know and do before setting out on our first official RV camping trip.

It’s likely we would not have chosen Wekiva Falls RV Resort in Sorrento, Florida, for our first trip, but some friends were staying there for the week. For us, it was about a 100-mile drive on main roads and highways with the chance to catch up with our friends and “kick the tires” on Yang (the name we’ve given to our RV; see our first post “Sailing into Retirement” for more on that choice).

We studied YouTube videos on hitching up Yang to Yin and wrote down the steps just to make sure we didn’t miss anything. When we felt like everything was ready to go, we pulled out of our home base (Waterside RV Resort in Sebring, FL) and headed to the main road. Right away, we heard a lot of creaking and squeaking.

The creaking and squeaking did not subside when we got on the main road, so we pulled into a large parking lot to try to determine the cause of all the “chatter” from Yang. We didn’t want to make the trip without making sure everything was okay. To be certain, we opted to phone a friend by calling our sales person at Camping World for reassurance and potential diagnosis. He asked us to send photos of the hookup and had us double check the tongue coupler to make sure it was in the correct position. Everything checked out.

Since we were going very near to the dealership, we decided to drive there to have them double check. As we pulled into the parking lot at Camping World, our sales person was waiting for us on a golf cart. While Marsha walked the dogs, he hopped in the passenger seat and had me drive around in circles to get an idea of the source of the noises. Nothing signaled concern, and he reassured us we had hooked everything up properly and should be good to go.

It was a delicate balance all the way to Wekiva Falls between worry and semi-excitement to be on the road for our first official RV trip. We arrived safe, but stressed after the drive and then backing into our lot. Instead of unhitching, we opted to wait until morning and get some help from our friend. All the mental and emotional energy we spent on the drive up made our minds mush as we contemplated the correct way to unhitch the RV. Better to sleep on it then make things any more stressful.

The next morning, we walked the dogs and bolstered our confidence with some caffeine before unhitching, leveling, and stabilizing Yang. We did it all by ourselves and felt a huge sense of relief and accomplishment. Then, we learned the entire RV Resort was under a boil water alert because of a water main break. We were already less than impressed with the “resort,” which had let us know ahead of time that the lagoon and connecting bridge we not available, but they failed to alert us to the water issue. Luckily, we had plenty of bottled water on hand, but we did forget to bring wine. Too bad we haven’t learned how to turn water into wine.

It’s interesting what you remember about an experience in retrospect. Now that we’re back home, we have a much different (better) perspective. We knew all along how to do what we needed to do to hitch and unhitch. We were proactive to have bottled water. We didn’t come for the resort, we came to see friends. Our friends brought plenty of wine to share, and we enjoyed each other’s company with lunch at Eden Abbey Brewing and dinner at their lot complete with campfire. This is what retirement living is really about, and we’re grateful to our friends who inspired our “break-in” trip.

P.S. On the way home, no creaking or squeaking until we backed into our lot at Waterside, and it wasn’t nearly as loud or concerning as two days earlier. It’s safe to say we worked out a few kinks during our “break-in” trip.