I77 - anyone recommend it as a scenic route

[SurfThyme]

Last year, my partner and I did a 18,000km cross-continent trip to the west coast. We drove accross Canada, through the Rockies, down through California before heading accross the country back home. It was the best three weeks of our lives. My dream is to travel down the eastern seaboard via I-95 this spring. And because my sweetie is a sweetie he's agreed and we have it planned for late May. After this trip, I'll have only 6 more states that I haven't traveled to (my dream is to cover all the states and all the Canadian provinces - silly isn't it. )

 

My question to anyone residing in the Carolinas/Virginia/Ohio, is the I-77 a decent/scenic route to travel back up to Cleveland? We're planning to go down to Columbia before catching the 77 and swinging back up north. We're scheduling this trip to end in Cleveland because I have to be on-site for my job at the end of my vacation. He'll grab the I-90 to head back home and I'll be flying home from Cleveland when my job is done (if I am lucky enough to get home before having to head elsewhere.)

 

We started to take the I-80 home last fall and didn't know that the drastic elevation drops in the Sierras at 5,000ft would cause my poor little dog (she was road-tripping with us and loved it) to collapse because of the elevation changes. After she collapsed the second time we quickly changed our plans in Salt Lake City and skipped Wyoming because 8,000ft would probably have killed her.

 

Although she won't be coming with us I was hoping to avoid any such surprises on this trip and want to make the trip back north as memorable as possible.

 

Although we've researched the trip, I just wanted to see if anyone on ENA has any recommendations. Would you suggest another interstate? I want to stick to the interstates because of the gas stations and the rest areas - I just have to thank all US residents for the rest areas (we have no such smart concept here in Canada. In fact, we found out you can drive accross a prairie province overnight and not find one gas station open between 11pm and 6am on the Trans-Canada highway. ](*,)) Thankfully, we didn't need gas or a bathroom that night!! We have the time to take another route back north other than the I-95 to see as much of the area as possible.