Firtst time boon-docking - fill/empty tanks?

I'd recommend running with 1/4 tank between RV Parks, and fill it up if you are moving on to a boondocking spot.

tmm2good wrote:

JAC1982 wrote:
Where in CO are you going? There are some CDOT rest stops in a few areas that have both free water, and free dump stations. We've used the ones in Fruita and in Rifle. I think there's also one in Edwards, and I'm guessing there's more throughout the state. We boondock at a music festival every June out by the CO/Utah border, west of Grand Junction, and we don't get water until we get over the mountains.

Country Jam? We missed this year, went the last 3. We always carry our water with us from home. And look for free/low cost dump station. We started using the one in Edwards, crowds not as bad on Monday morning leaving countryjam.

Yup! Hubs has been going for 10+ years with his family, it was my 5th time this year, 3rd with our own camper. This was our first year with the new dually so he was going off the experience of not liking to tow with the weight from the full water tank to go up/down the grades. I think we'd be fine now to fill up at home now we have the big truck. But yeah, avoiding the Fruita stop is now a given, we use Rifle both coming to get water, and going to dump. I think people are catching on to Rifle though, because last year, there was nobody in line in front of us, we pulled right in. This year, there was 1 dumping and 1 behind them when we arrived at 8ish AM, and there were about 4 in line when we finished. Might have to switch to Edwards next time :)

richardcoxi, i think many, especially newbies, are under the assumption that carrying water will affect fuel mileage.
they don't know that frontal air resistance is the real fuel hog.

and a few have a marginal tow vehicle and have to account for every pound to be safe and within spec.

richardcoxid - Agree. We boondock or dry camp often in the Sawtooths so we leave with a full tank - 75 gallons and our travel route is over several passes into higher elevation from our home.

It is amazing to me how these folks who are concerned with traveling with full water tanks vs 1/2 full tanks will take 2 grand children, 2 bicycles, 2 skate boards, extra chairs, electronic games, extra clothes, food etc. and not think a thing about weight! But they panic with 200# to 300# of extra of water.

Water weights 8.3#/ gal. For example 40 extra gal. of water weights 332#. If your combined rig weights 20,000# do you really believe that 332# more weight will make a difference in mpg? Under laboratory conditions yes, but in real life I don't think so (wind and speed have a bigger effect) Remember "a pint of water is a pound the world around" 2 pints equal a quart, 4 quarts equal a gal. (8 pts= 1 gal) A friend of mine has a Moho with a 100 gal diesel fuel tank, diesel fuel weights about 6.3#/gal you do the math for a full diesel tank vs 1/4 tank of diesel. I have a 60 gal direct replacement diesel fuel tank on my PU.

In our case we live in the county with our own personal 175 ft. deep domestic water well. So we normally drink unchlorinated and unfluorinated water. We can taste treated city water-YUCK! So we leave home with a full tank (80 gal) of our own well water, a 5 gal. bottle and a 2 gal dispenser container of drinking water and empty waste tanks.

When we lived inside the city limits (treated city water) I didn't worry about super chlorinating the RV water tank. Now the we live out side the city limits (29 years) I do super chlorinate the water at the beginning of the season and then before the next trip if we didn't have city treated water in it at the end of the last trip.

JAC1982 wrote:
Where in CO are you going? There are some CDOT rest stops in a few areas that have both free water, and free dump stations. We've used the ones in Fruita and in Rifle. I think there's also one in Edwards, and I'm guessing there's more throughout the state. We boondock at a music festival every June out by the CO/Utah border, west of Grand Junction, and we don't get water until we get over the mountains.

Country Jam? We missed this year, went the last 3. We always carry our water with us from home. And look for free/low cost dump station. We started using the one in Edwards, crowds not as bad on Monday morning leaving countryjam.

Santa Rita visitor center's dump station is now open. It closed because of a overflow problem. :(

2gypsies wrote:
Carrying a tank of water will not cut down on fuel mileage.

For Durango, the Santa Rita park/visitor center on Hwy 160 has a dump station.

If you don't want to stay at a RV park prior to boondocking or after, then many RV parks will let you use the dump station for a fee - most likely cheaper than staying overnight.

Just fyi, according to the sanidumps website, the Santa Rita visitor center dump station is closed as of 7/16/16. Doesn't say why.

In addition, if you do camp where there's water hookup, having on board water allows you to still have water should the night temps dip to freezing. We've been there with leaving the hose connected overnight and wake to no water - when we were "green".

jnharley wrote:
We always travel with a full water tank and exclusively use our fresh water tank even in campgrounds with full hook ups. Never know when the water supply at a campground will go out. Has happened to us numerous times and we have water for our use.

This^ I always keep at least half tank of water. We mainly camp at our hunting least way out of town, two trip ago a cow had knocked out one of the faucets and camp had no water pressure. Took a couple hours to source the parts but in the mean time we had water to wash hands with, use the toilet etc. Never hurts to leave a little for the essentials.