I love the smell of fresh asphalt in the morning. . . . NOT!
Just gotta disagree with you on this one... I mean, the smell of the "tar and feather" topcoats is horrible, as is the smell of the tar used to seal cracks. But blacktop... asphalt... macadam... whatever you want to call it, is an awesome smell to me.
I think it comes from childhood. When I was seven years old, my parents moved us to a large subdivision (~200 houses) that was half-built. The kids in the neighborhood would all gather scraps of lumber for tree houses as well as other stuff. In addition, we had a blacktopping company that was paving the roads and driveways. They'd let us hang out, help out (as much as a kid could), and ride around in the trucks with them to the asphalt plant and back, learned all sorts of colorful language, and they even would slip us a buck every now and then. Looking back at it, and comparing the helicopter parenting of today, I had an amazing childhood.