Day 1 (Saturday): Drive from home to my normal mid-Nebraska midpoint.
Day 2 (Sunday): Drive from mid-Nebraska to Moab.
Day 3 (Monday): First day of Chesler Park hike
Day 4 (Tuesday): Second day; stay back at Squaw Canyon campground
Day 5 (Wednesday): First day of Salt Canyon exploration
Day 6 (Thursday): Second day of Salt Canyon and Horse Canyon exploration; back at Sqauw Canyon
Day 7 (Friday): Explore some other Moab sites reachable by car, particularly Fisher Towers.
Day 8 (Saturday): Drive back to Omaha
Day 9 (Sunday): Drive the rest of the way home.
If I do it in April, I can leave on Friday, take fewer vacation days, and get an extra day of hiking, which means I can actually do Horse Canyon and Salt Creek canyon as to discrete trips with a stop back at the water and established campground at Squaw Canyon. I have to come almost all the way back to Squaw Canyon campground from exploring one to take the other fork to the other anyway, and that keeps me from needing to carry more than two days worth of water.
Of course, I may decide that I don't even want that much backcountry time anyway, and that I've already bit off as much as I want to chew.
I also don't really like using Sundays as driving days, but realistically, with a normal work schedule and a 2-day drive on either end of the trip, I don't have a lot of choices that don't make significant sacrifices to my ability to actually do the purpose of the trip. I suppose if it's really that bad, I could stop for Church somewhere in whatever town I'm passing through at 9 AM and get at least sacrament meeting, but most likely I'll consider that and not do it, which is what normally happens. It's just too difficult to pull off, and makes my arrival schedule too late that day too.
I may be overthinking the water management problem, though. From what I've seen of trip reports in the area, it's not necessarily that dry during the spring. And this was actually quite a bit later in the spring than I was talking about. In fact, it's late enough that if this worked out, it does kind of make me think that maybe April or even early May might not be a bad time to go.
https://backcountrypost.com/threads/salt-creek-canyonlands.3945/
https://www.visitutah.com/things-to-do/backpacking/canyon-country-southern-utah/big-needles-loop-canyonlands/
https://www.backpacker.com/trips/canyonlands-national-park-salt-creek-lavender-canyon-loop
UPDATE: I suspect that, as normal, I'm being too ambitious. I see from various online trip reports that people do the Salt Creek as a point to point and still take 4-5 days to do it. Here, I'm thinking that I'd jaunt most of the way down it and turn around all in two days! Granted, some of those people had rather leisurely approaches, but then again; wouldn't I rather do that myself? One group got caught in a pretty serious storm that lasted most of an afternoon, and then had to contend with flooded, swampy conditions the next day, both of which slowed them up considerably too. But, it looks like unless you're doing a late season approach, there should be plenty of water in the Salt Creek canyon to make carrying gallons and gallons unnecessary. In any case, I've seen other trip reports that call it a day hike, albeit a long one. I'm unsure on how to proceed.
Although it's not cheap, I like the idea of having a shuttle. (It gets cheaper (per person, anyway) the more you have in your party.) Hiking from Cathedral Butte to Chesler Park sounds doable and great, before finishing the Chesler Park loop and returning to Squaw Canyon campground and the car.
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