As usual, we were in a hurry to get home (one of these days!) but we still made a couple of stops on the way

The first night after our Hot Springs visit, we were looking for a cheap (or free) overnight stop. Mammoth Spring SP was listed on one of our camping apps as being a free stop, so we did just that.

We pulled into the parking area for the park and had the place pretty much to ourselves. The area was very pretty, lots of water, grass, and trees. We waited until dark, and with no knocks on the door to move us along, settled in for a quiet night. The next morning we took a walking tour of the spring and the surrounding park, and it was quite a place.

The spring is one of the World’s largest, with more than nine million gallons of water flowing out of it every hour. It forms a ten acre lake that flows into the aptly named Spring River. Back in the day, the flow was used to power a mill and a hydroelectric plant.

After the tour of the park, the spring, and the hydroelectric plant, we continued on north and east. Our last stop, other than quick overnight sleeps, was a visit to Asheville, North Carolina. It was a fun stop given the eclectic atmosphere of the town. It is a place we will need to visit again to explore further.

We then drove through parts of the Great Smoky Mountains on the final leg of our return trip.