We did a lot of driving on our trip to the US. I mean a LOT. Most of it was pretty harmless. Some of it reeked. Literally.
Now, I'm no stranger to stinky travelling. I recall a pungent road trip stop on a hot summer afternoon where we discovered the source of the hideous stench we were gasping at was the bloated and rotting corpse of a wild pig nearby. Then there were the olfactory antics of my dear uncle on this trip. Or perhaps there was the stifling afternoon where I was driven to a crematorium but left in the car for the service as mum felt I was too young to attend. Now, I can't be sure, but we were parked downwind of the crematorium and I never, EVER want to smell anything like that again.
They were some pretty nasty experiences. But they were not a patch, not even a whiff of what Ghost and I had to put up with on the drive from Cedartown, GA to Cincinnati, OH.
It was dark, so we couldn't be positive, but we estimate that we drove past three dead skunks, a chicken farm, an abattoir, a water treatment plant and a sinkhole leading to one of the lower, more sulfurous levels of hell. That or we were driving through the set of 'Dawn of the Dead' in Smell-o-vision.
Dear gods… just as we had driven past one unholy pong, another one was waiting down the road to greet us, each one more indescribably appalling than the last.
Now, I have driven past chicken farms and water treatment plants and abattoirs before. It's profoundly unpleasant. When you're in an enclosed space, it's enough to make you want to fart just to clear the air a little. But what was Mother Nature thinking when she invented the skunk?
The damned things smell shocking enough when they are alive, but when they are road-kill? The rancid stench of dead skunk has to be experienced to be believed. There are no words in the English language to adequately describe the horror. It makes rotting boar carcass smell positively fresh.
Now, I'm sure we drove through some very scenic landscapes along the way, but the next time I try that trip, I'll be huffing air freshener straight from the can.
Monkey Business
Another 5 
down. Well, I'd lost 6 but after laying out a feast of beer, ice cream, popcorn and lots more beer, one climbed back on again. 107 to go!
What's all this monkey business about then?
Hey, that's what you get for driving right by my house and not stopping!
You know, it's strange, I almost find the smell of skunks to be rather pleasant. But you're quite right about some of the places here. Northern New Jersey smells so noxious, it got a recent write-up on an MSN content article called "America's Five Worst Roads." And when I was younger, driving through the Panhandle, I sweat to Christ the most villainously detestable scent, like a thin residue of oil in the air, picked up right when we hit the Arkansas border, and wouldn't go away until we hit the other border.
And no, I'm not kidding.
What the Saint said (like, I should argue with a Saint?) about Northern New Jersey. Also parts of the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn are none too pleasant. But as there's no wildlife, barring the small squeeky kind or the ROUSes here, those pungencies tend to be chemical, rather than organic.
This whole thread is too much information, isn't it?
Two words: pig manure. It is an ungodly stench, such that a few drops of it on your clothing can make you smell beyond ghastly for hours on end.
Also, grape casings. There's a thriving wine industry 'round these here parts, and the problem of what to do with the grape skins after the wine is made has been solved by spreading them on farmer's fields. It is not a nice smell.
I usually ride with my windows up and my air conditioner blowing, so I haven't noticed a lot of smells while traveling through Mississippi. Though skunk does tend to over power all masks and filters. :-P
And now I'm trying to remember if Neil had any *smells* in his Great American Road Trip novel.
But I was very relieved that there weren't any West Coast smells listed.
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Lord Almighty, I was snorting and chuckling the whole way through this.