Does anyone have any suggestions of where to stop along the way and things that might interest the kids to see?
We drove out last year about this time and on the way back stopped at "Tellus: Northwest Georgia Science Museum" in Cartersville. If your kids like rocks, they'll like it -- unless you insist on them reading all the educational info by the displays. Not that I'd
ever do
that...
Actually, eldest and I really did spend most of the time there looking at rocks and reading up on them (she likes shinys); the younger kids spent most of their time back in the water play area (which is technically panning for gems), sifting for fossils, and hanging out in the gift shop. My younger kids like museums -- but they loooove gift shops.
For us it was a perfect stop while driving -- including wandering the grounds a bit it was maybe an hour. Plus if you're a member of an ASTC museum (which we are), then it's free!
http://www.tellusmuseum.org/
We've also stopped at that Dinosaur place near Cave City, which also took maybe an hour. Most of that is outside, so not a good choice in bad weather.
Both of those are right off the highway, as is Mammoth Cave National Park (it's about 10 miles from I-65 to the Ranger Station or whatever that's called, and about half that to the park itself), so perfect if you're just looking for a bit of a break.
What about Nashville? You could stop a the Parthenon, it would give the kids a good place to get out and run around, plus if you're lucky you might be able to catch a really cool art fair that they have there.
Love the Parthenon, and there's a big city park around it that's nice for kids, too. It's not far off the highway, but it's city traffic, which the other three aren't. Oh, and you have little ones, they may find the statue of Athena intimidating -- one trip one of my kids had to hide behind me all the way through that room, and another trip one of the kids wouldn't go up there at all. But both of them loved the Parthenon despite that.
Probably because it has a giftshop.
In addition, as you stop at the rest areas or gas stations, look for the free travel booklets they have sitting out. There are always coupons for the hotels along the highway.
We've had mostly good luck with those coupon books -- a lot of new places advertise in there, as do places that have just been remodeled. We've stayed in some great suites and played in some cool pools.
Although hubby's also good at asking questions and assessing the place before we sign in, which helps I am sure.
The only two solutions we ever found were to stop at six hours (because he would keep this up for an hour or more), or to give him his own seat, in which case he'd wind up for twenty minutes and then pass out and snooze for a few hours (not practical when we were traveling with all the kids but my dad made use of this when he only had a couple of them).
), but I've never found it again. 
