I put in my notice that I would be retiring on January 1st. The travel had become too much, the job was no longer something I wanted to do, and according to my calculations, Wendy and I could afford to live comfortably for the rest of our days.

I gave the company about seven weeks’ notice, which apparently caused a minor panic. My position was a bit of a niche specialty, so they asked me to stay until they could find someone and help get them up to speed. I agreed, mostly because they promised I wouldn’t have to travel.

With the end finally in sight, Wendy and I decided to take the RV to Florida. I could work remotely, and it seemed perfectly reasonable to handle emails and calls from the camper, a beach, or even a McDonald’s with Wi-Fi.

Wendy immediately went into planning mode. She studied RV organization sites, and soon Amazon packages were arriving almost daily. Shelves, bins, hangers, organizers. I even built drawers under the bed so we could find our clothes without digging through plastic tubs.

Eventually, we had to answer the big questions: What do we bring? How far do we drive? Where do we stay?

Our first stop was Oak Mountain State Park in Alabama. It was beautiful, spacious, and had a golf course we didn’t get to play. It was also cold. We quickly learned that keeping an RV warm uses a surprising amount of propane. A few days into the trip, we were already learning that RV life involves managing things we had never thought much about at home.

Tire pressure was another lesson. My cheap tire gauge only went to 60 psi, while the RV tires called for 80. I figured more than 60 was probably good enough. It wasn’t. At our next stop, I found the tires were actually at 65 psi. I filled them to 80 and immediately noticed the difference. The truck towed better, felt more stable, and even got better fuel mileage.

Lesson learned: use the right equipment and check the tires.

We continued south to Reed Bingham State Park in Georgia. The drive took us past miles of pecan orchards, something I had never actually seen before. The park was quiet, the campsites were spacious, and the lake was beautiful. There was no Wi-Fi, but sometimes that’s not such a bad thing.

Then we spent several days in Lake City, Florida, where we played our first real golf of the trip.

The Country Club at Lake City was, to put it kindly, struggling. The irrigation system had failed, the greens were basically sand, and the fairways were hard as a rock.

Quail Heights was much better. The course had plenty of water, the greens were in good shape, and we actually enjoyed the round. We were paired with a guy from Indiana who announced before we started that he didn’t like Canadians. Since Wendy and I were originally from Canada, we decided that particular detail could remain our little secret. Fortunately, he talked so much that he probably wouldn’t have noticed anyway.

From Lake City we headed to Prairie State Park near Kissimmee. It was supposed to be a great place for stargazing. Unfortunately, the moon had other ideas. Then we discovered that dogs weren’t allowed on the trails, which eliminated about half the reason we had come.

So after one night, we bailed and headed for Fort Myers.

That’s where RV life provided its first truly memorable lesson.

When we left Lake City, Wendy asked if I had closed the valves. I assumed she meant the propane valves and said yes.

She didn’t.

She meant the dump valves.

When we arrived in Fort Myers and I pulled the sewer cap, I discovered that both the black and gray tank valves had been left open. The pipe was full.

Everything came out onto the freshly paved RV pad.

Let’s just say it wasn’t our finest moment.

We cleaned it up, hooked up the RV, and added another item to the growing list of things you learn only by doing them.

Lesson learned: make a checklist. Don’t assume anything.

Fort Myers brought another discovery: Florida golf can be expensive, and some of the courses were surprisingly short. We initially wondered why so many were par 60 layouts.

Then we watched the golfers.

The clientele was old. Very old.

We were the first group out on a cold morning. As the temperature rose, the older golfers began appearing. Suddenly, the short courses made perfect sense.

Florida golf, at least in Fort Myers, seemed to have been engineered for endurance rather than distance.

And so our RV adventure had officially begun. We were learning how to travel, how to camp, how to golf, and, occasionally, how not to dump a black tank onto somebody else’s parking pad.

There was still a lot to learn.