[Carl n Susan]

I think Carol mentioned it, but let me re-iterate it. *WATER* is the blessing and curse of Q.

The "deep well water" they sell for a nickel a gallon is good for washing or whatever but is not what you want to drink or cook with. Bring a 2-3 gallon plastic bottle that you will fill with Reverse Osmosis (RO) water. RO water is available everywhere and costs two bits a gallon. Use this to cook, coffee, tea, ice cubes, dog water, etc. We prefer bottled water for drinking (only when traveling) so we bring a case of that too.

The use of water means it has to be disposed off. The holding tanks serve that purpose but you want to do what you can to minimize what goes in there and consequently extend the time before you have to empty them. Navy showers are proven water minimizer techniques. A plastic dishpan for washing those things which are not disposable (pots, silverware, etc) will enable you to legally dump that grey water outside and not into your holding tank.

Another consideration is electrical power. When the generator is running, have a ball. Run everything you can. But once you fall back to just 12V power you need to be aware of the power requirements you need. The standard 12V bulbs consume large gobs of 12V power (2+ amps each). You really want to minimize the use of lights unless you have converted to LEDs (something like .2 amps). But the biggest power eater is the furnace. The squirrel cage blower is a huge power eater. Unless you have mega-batteries (much more than the standard single 12V) the furnace will drain your battery in one cold night (Q is currently forecasting lows around 30 degrees) if you try to keep the RV too warm. Either turn the furnace off at night (and have a down comforter handy) or set the thermostat down to 50 degrees or so.