Cincinnati smells!
 

Perhaps it was just me... or maybe it was the time of day (noonish) near a factory... but I was on the second day of a road trip between Texas and Pennsylvania a couple of days ago and my route took me through Cincinnati, OH. I cranked the windows down to vent my car (I'd taken in some diesel exhaust from a truck I'd just passed) and the most peculiar odor blew in. It was... organic, kinda sickly, a bit medical, more porcine vet's office than Park Avenue dermatologist, and just plain gross.

Was I imagining it? At first, I wasn't sure what it was (perhaps a car's bad exhaust system or some such) but the smell lingered from the riverfront stretch of I-71 North and uphill past dowtown. It was several minutes before the smell finally purged from my car.

Anyone have any idea what this might've been? A factory? The river? The unwashed denizens of nearby Kentucky?

I started noticing that horrible smell right after the November election when Ohio earned the great distinction of putting that liar back in the White House.

could be alcohol
 

Alcohol was manufactured there at one point, not sure if they still :D do. It made for an interesting experience driving down the highway.

You ought to try Savannah airport (SAV) and the smell of what i can only describe as rotting seaweed... YEUUUUUUCK!

Central California, especially near Visalia, smells of poop. I suppose that's fertilizer for the farms.

I drove past some pig farms in North Carolina once, and that smelled bad, but it didn't seem as bad as central California (pig farms have a more natural poopy smell :) ).

When I was a kid, sometimes you couldn't go outside at Lake Cherokee in east Texas unless you wanted a whiff of camera film byproducts from the Kodak factory (seriously, it smelled exactly like camera film). I haven't been there in a while, so maybe it's not as bad, if there at all, given the huge increase in the availability of digital cameras.

It's actually a reasonable pleasant city. Lot's of hilly places near the city (Mount Adams, etc). There are some funny smells around the Jack Damiels brewery (or distillery?).

I remember on one of the highways (can't remember if it was I-71 or I-75) there was a distillery nearby and you could smell it from the highway when the wind was right. Not really objectionable, though. Haven't been back that way since 1978.

Savannah is not near as bad as it used to be. Or maybe I just got used to it! :cool:

Eureka!
 

I've figured it out.

http://www.channelcincinnati.com/new...13/detail.html

Courtesy of this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455870

"My girlfriend told me to kiss her where it smells, so I took her to Cincinnati."

--author unknown

I would presume you were driving along the I-75 corridor.

Actually, the smell comes from a manufacturer of flavor additives. Even nice things can smell very unpleasant when highly concentrated. When I was in university there, every once in a while we would get a waft of it. Strawberry was awful. Vanillin was heavenly.

When I read your post, it sounded like the cause of your problems were the factories. Heavy industry makes the air stink. You can get a similar experience in Northwest Indiana. I wonder how unhealthy it is to live there. I know the EPA has emission standards, but it just doesn't like it could be good to breathe oil refinery emissions daily.

Nothing like arriving in Newark...
 

..and taking that first big whiff!

Identified awful highway smells:

Ketchup (Heinz factory since shut down) passing through Tracy, CA

Pet food passing through Decatur, AL

Chicken poop & guts passing through Monroe, NC

Chemicals from Monsanto factory north of Springfield, MA

Of them all, the pet food was the worst

Have any of you driven through towns which have paper pulp factories? :(

Sewage treatment plant near PHL

Used to live about an hour away from one. It's a nasty, nasty smell. Pork processing plants are nasty too, as are chicken farms.

Corn syrup factory in Clinton, Iowa. Uggh.

Rendering plants in the summertime (strong smell of death) in various locations. Yuck.

Athens, TN Bowater plant visible from the interstate. Smells like sulfur, no more no less. Not pleasant but at least identifiable and inorganic.

I wouldn't buy a house downwind but I'd take it over a sewage treatment plant, (wet) pet food factory or chicken processing operation if forced to make a choice among the four.

I can't belive no one has mentioned Terre Haute, IN. Egads.

Before they renovated ONT (10+ years ago), I remember that if the wind was blowing the wrong way you would get a terrible whiff of the cow farms situated off to the east. This was in the days when you HAD to take the stairs in the open air to deplane (no jetbridges). I haven't had the pleasure of flying through there recently, so I don't know if the farms have been paved under yet.

Used to live in AGS, home of the Masters' Golf Tournament. Smell of paper mills would waft 20-30 miles away and it was disgusting.

Now for something truly unpleasant, try an egg factory or factory hog farm. Some along highways in OH and IN. Always try to make sure car A/C is on recirc near there.

To paraphrase Robert Duvall/Col. Killgore - "I love the smell of pig$h*t in the morning!"

Cincinnati smells!
 

I did not know Cincinnati had a nose.

U of I (Champaign/Urbana), if you get the wind from the wrong direction (I think south) the entire town and campus smells like poop. Couldn't imagine studying there being surrounded by the smell of poop.

Taipei is known as the City of a Thousand Odors

From my house you can sometimes smell oranges from the Tropicana plant about 5 miles away. That's a good smell, though. :)

*****