The drive is only 30-45 minutes depending on traffic and white route I take, it's actually about the same amount of time that it takes to get to our vet, lol.
She has become a lot more bonded to me in the past few months - she has always slept with me, but now she prefers to sleep ON my or right up near my chest, she will also come up to me for pets and hang out with me, which she never really did before.
No one will really be at my parents house when I'm there, my sister and her kids (teenagers) are going to stop by for an hour or so on Christmas Eve, but they'll be downstairs with us and not upstairs. I will, obviously, still be sleeping in the room she'll be in and will go up and visit/play with her regularly.
I don't know that she's unhappy when I'm not around, but it does take her a very long time to warm up to other people. It took her a few months to even let Mike or myself approach her without her running away, about 4 months for her to let us pet her and pick her up on a regular basis. It took her about 4 months to get used to people that came over regularly (friends), and she still prefers to hide if new people or people that she hasn't seen a lot come over.
I don't think that she'll like the car ride much, but other than that I think she'll settle in fine as long as she's only in the one room (which she will be, my dad isn't even too fond of the idea of her coming at all, lol).