Newbies!

[Larment]

Hi! We are Lori and Don from Summerfield Florida. We just purchased a 2021 GD reflection 311BHS. Never even owned a truck before or never camped. We plan on traveling the entire west when I retire January 1. We are learning a lot and have a long ways to go. Looking for any advice and help we can.
Thanks

[Second Chance]

Welcome to the forum! You can create a signature block with your RV and tow vehicle information (see mine below). That way you won't have to repeat that information whenever you post or ask a question - and others won't have to ask. You can create a signature by going to:

Forum Actions (on menu bar) -> Edit Profile -> Edit Signature (under My Settings on the left)

Happy camping!

Rob

[OurNewEra]

Hi! We are Lori and Don from Summerfield Florida. We just purchased a 2021 GD reflection 311BHS. Never even owned a truck before or never camped. We plan on traveling the entire west when I retire January 1. We are learning a lot and have a long ways to go. Looking for any advice and help we can.
Thanks

Welcome! We are not far from you in Lake County, Florida.

[AustexGP]

Welcome to the forum and to the 311BHS. We have a 2017 Reflection 311BHS and love it. We usually have 8-9 with us when we camp locally (within 200 miles) and a couple of years ago (seems like it was just last year...) we traveled from Austin, TX to Moab UT, then from Moab to Park City, then to Tropic UT and back.

I started towing the 311BHS with a Chevy 2500 Diesel but after about a year I switched to a Chevy 3500HD diesel dual rear wheels. It made a ton of difference in towing.

There's not very many of us 311BHS members who post on the forum. Several post on the Facebook.com/Grand Design 311BHS page. However I think the information that you get here is far superior to the Facebook group (sorry if that offends).

Just a few hints:

Get a Valterra twist on sewer waste valve. For some reason when you open the main drain (even after a proper flushing) you get about a half gallon of junk out of the pipe,
Get a small 3 foot drinking water hose and a 90degree elbow to connect to the intake city water system. Run the hose through to hole in the tray, attach a water filter to that and run the drinking water host to the campground connection. Connect the 90 degree to the Nautilus (keeps from having scrape knuckles).
Get a good water pressure regulator (I have a Hourleey)
Get another 3 foot standard hose to attach to the black water flush outlet again run it through the hole in the tray. Keeps the tray from filling up with "dirty water"
Get a expandable standard water hose to use for the black water flush
Get a couple of clear sewer tank rinsers (one for each sewer drain)
Get a rhino-flex "Y" connector. This allows you to hook up both sewer hoses to the campsite waste dump.
Plenty of sewer hoses and connectors.
I took a 25 foot fresh water hose and cut it into a 10 foot and 15 foot lengths (use the brass connectors from Lowe's or Home Depot). This keeps you from having 25 foot of water hose when you only need 10 or so. A lot of our buddies have switched to the ZERO-G fresh water hose. Don't forget to get a splitter for the campground water. One side hooked up to the drinking water hose, water filter and then into the fresh water connection. The other has the standard hose hooked up for rinsing spills, etc.
Several plastic containers for the fresh water stuff and black water stuff (do not put fresh water with black water).
A 50amp to 30 amp dog bone and a 30amp to 15amp dog bone.

And most of all remember WalMart and Amazon is your dearest friend while stocking the camper.

Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions, the folks here will be more than happy to help.

[Larment]

Thanks Les and Sharon!
We are camping now and when we get home we are going over the list that you recommended. Appreciate all the help!

[Larment]

Les,
Have a question, when we are hooked up to our trucks power and are towing can the refrigerator keep running from the trucks power? The modes that are screen on the refrigerator show are AC LP AU. If the LP tanks should always be turned off when you’re traveling then should it be on AU?

[AustexGP]

Les,
Have a question, when we are hooked up to our trucks power and are towing can the refrigerator keep running from the trucks power? The modes that are screen on the refrigerator show are AC LP AU. If the LP tanks should always be turned off when you’re traveling then should it be on AU?

The refrigerator will run on propane or shore power. It will not cool from the trucks power. The only thing that the trucks power does is keep the batteries charged. With charged batteries you get slide-outs working, lights and a few plugs. Haven't tried it but I don't believe the TV would work on battery power only.

The outside kitchen only works on shore power. I used to get it real cold and put water, soft drinks and our beer in there before leaving. However during our trip to Utah, the outdoor refrigerator broke loose from the wall and we had soft drinks and beer everywhere. Now we keep the soft drinks and beer in a cooler!

We run our refrigerator on propane on and the refrigerator showing LP when traveling. Each time we stop we check to make sure that it still running/cooling.