CB,
I hope you enjoyed your first flight in the 182RG
Its one of my favorite planes, and one of the few four seaters that you really can get four people and a sensible ammount of fuel into. It will cruise at 140 knots, but approach at 70.
It's got a very good short field performance - have a look in the POH for the details.
One of the handy tips that I've picked up flying the 182 is to lower the first sage of flap when you lower the landing gear (the limit speeds are the same) - the trim changes pretty much cancel each other out, so you dont' need to retrim. As you'll have discouvered by now the 182 is pretty heavy in pitch, and you do need to keep it in trim. Wait until you do your first go-around you'll find you need a pretty hefty push on the control column to prevent her from pitching up too much.
I found it quite a handful to start with (having only flown C172s and PA28s before then), and a took a while to get to grips with it.