There were trying times in that rental truck during the 16-hour drive from Milwaukee to Charleston. For some reason, each cat wanted to spend the duration of the trip curled up underneath the brake pedal, requiring regular frantic disengagement from under my husband's feet. By the time we entered Tennessee, the level of floating cat hair threatened to close my husband's throat (he had allergies as a kid). We couldn't open the windows because we didn't want one of the cats deciding they were going to escape by way of jumping out the window.
This might be a good time to explain that we decided to travel with the cats able to roam free in the truck. Cats in cat carriers assume they are going to the veterinarian and howl the whole way as if they are going to slaughter. Cats riding in laps, while still distressed, seem to weather the trip in a calmer fashion. Years ago when I moved to Florida, the howling from the cat carriers was intense even with kitty vallum. Apollo had a second dose about 2 hours into the trip. It seemed this might be a less stressful way to get them there.
We were still concerned because two are geriatrics and the kitten hyperventilates when riding in the car, but short of leaving them with my mom, we had few choices. Overall, it worked fairly well. We were driving a rental truck and had a little more space for movement than would have been available in a car (and certainly more than in their cat carriers). This allowed each cat to have their own space and Molly only needed to interact with her siblings when everyone was changing location. This happened frequently. Aside from her desire to bite me as we neared our destination (I was once again forced to drag her out from underneath my husband's feet), the trip was made more annoying by the mechanical condition of the rental truck than by the behavior of the cats riding inside.
The tricky part was trying to get them to drink water during the 16 hour trip, but worse than that was when they DID actually drink water and then had to use the litter box. Sitting next to the kitty toilet isn't exactly how I recommend you spend your day. It was hot outside. The air conditioning in the truck didn't work as well as it could have. The aforementioned windows were closed. I think you can probably imagine how nice this was.
I don't encourage folks to travel with cats running free in the truck for the obvious reason that they will attempt to get to the one place you don't want them (under the brake). Certainly this is a safety risk. We tried to limit the dangers by having them on leashes with body harnesses instead of simple collars. This did help make it easier for me to remove cats from situations we didn't want them in, but it wasn't completely fool proof. Leashes got wrapped around my leg, the seats, the cats...
If there's ever a next time, maybe they should fly.
