We made our first weekend trip with our Flagstaff 25LB last weekend.
My wife and I, our 13 year old son and two small mutts TJ & Bailey.
Went to Clear Creek Recreational Area, a close by State ran campground about 70 miles from home. It was planned as a sort of shakedown trip to help familiarize ourselves with the TT and learn how to use it and all it's amenities. The weekend was an overall success I think.
A few observations:
25 gallon gray water tank is not much at all.....
My GPS (Garmin 1450) is not very RV friendly (put us on a couple of pig trails going and coming).
I like "camping" with an air conditioner and queen size bed!!!
I expected my fuel mileage to drop considerably but not quite this much.
This trip would not have been nearly as much fun or successful had I not found this site and taken in all your suggestions and remedies to common problems and occurences.
Welcome! Finding these forums is your best move so far. Don't stress out too much about the gas mileage. You are hauling a hotel suite and a restaurant with you after all. Enjoy your travels.
Congratulations on the new camper! It will take a little time to find what works for you... we've used our camper for 6 years and still change things up to keep it interesting and find what works best for us.
Regarding the gray water... conserve, conserve, conserve. Now that you know how little it takes to fill it, you can begin making adjustments. Learn to take "navy showers" (wet, suds, rinse... only turn the water on when wetting & rinsing)... another option is to use the campground's facilities and take as long as you want. Also, don't leave the water running while brushing teeth and washing dishes. Heck, if you can, wash the dishes outside.
Fuel mileage... it's a fact of life. These boxes on wheels are typically not very aerodynamic. Some are better than others. Sometimes you can adjust your driving habits to squeeze out a few MPGs, but I would not expect a huge gain to be made. The bigger concern for me would be to the tow vehicle's drivetrain components... keep the RPMs down and your automatic transmission will service you much longer.
As for the GPS... we love ours, but sometimes the "lady in the box" gives us directions we know better than to take. Look for adjustments to the settings... no u-turns, etc. I don't remember the exact settings on our Garmin Nuvi, but I seem to recall something about "don't take me on any rabbit trails".
With practice you'll have even more fun and collect enough "necessities" to furnish two households... and a few memories along the way. Now, get out there and practice... and have a good, relaxing time in the process!
Glad you found this place and a nice first report.25 gals of gray water is about 1 day for a family, I never use GPS, think maps (I use U.S. highways and State roads with great success-I hate Interstate highways), A/C and QB are great amenities for roughing it, fuel mileage, well just forget it and have fun. You cannot put a cost on priceless family memories.
25 gallons of gray water? I agree with MegaJohn - you can cut down on this. In fact, we have found we use less water at home because we conserve more now. Teeth brushing, showering, dish washing, hand washing, etc. can all be done with very little water. We keep a dish pan in the kitchen sink and capture as much gray water as possible, using it to flush the toilet even.
Glad you all had a great time! I hope you have many years of camping ahead!
25 gallons of gray water sucks, maybe I should get a trailer with a little more, what's this my truck doesn't tow the new trailer very well, time to upgrade the truck, hmm...now I could tow a little bigger trailer, would be nice to have an outside kitchen :-)
Oh the RV addiction, good luck...sounds like you are on your way to catch the disease the rest of us have :-)
Congrats on the successful trip, you will adjust your camping to whatever you have available, and you will modify what you can to make it more enjoyable.
You might want to think about investing in a mobile gray water tank so you don't have to worry as much about conserving.
2012 Evergreen Everlite 32RBK-DS
2011 Toyota Tundra 5.7 Rock Warrior
i use plastic pans for dishes ,one to wash ,one to rinse , five gallons of water (boiled on the camp chef ) mixed with a little fresh water , when done the water goes into the fire pit (not in my gray tank ! wash hands with water at a drizle , wash body ,teeth , etc.. in a sink ... we have learned to use very small amount of water for cleaning duties , just use it more wisely
(than a person might at home ) thats one part of camping .... to us anyways ! just suggestions !that have worked well for us .
Happy Camping !!!!!
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! wash hands with water at a drizle , wash body ,teeth , etc.. in a sink ... we have learned to use very small amount of water for cleaning duties , just use it more wisely 
