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.

Alcohol was manufactured there at one point, not sure if they still 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!

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.

..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?