Caught Between a Rock and the Deep Blue Sea

Don't think I don't know that this title is a mixed metaphor.  But it works.

On the one side, the oil business and on the other side, family commitments and a holiday road trip.  Stuck in the Middle are our lives in Dallas. 
    All of this summer it has been a push to get my Eldorado Prospect, a shallow oil well drilled in Southern Arkansas. 
    All of this summer, Inga has been counting the days to get back to Eugene, Oregon to move into her first apartment and get started with her sophomore year at the University of Oregon.

Location for the drilling rig has been built and the rig will be onsite Sept. 8 and ready to get drilling the Owens #1 well with promising prospects for the rocks of the Rodessa Formation at 3,300 feet underground.  Inga has packed up spare dishes, saucers and cups, knives from home, purchased a griddle and slow-cooker for her new place.  She expects to be in Eugene on Sept. 17 to move her school stuff out of storage and plans on spending the day of Sept. 18 dipping a triumphant toe in the edge of the Deep Blue Sea at the Oregon Coast.  Like MacArthur: I have returned!

The catch- the plan is to drive to Oregon and use the college-mobile to haul belongings awaiting in storage at the end of the Oregon Trail.  The plan is to leave Dallas on the 14th.  The other catch is that I need to be sitting the well and making decisions for my investors as to whether we struck oil and make the call to complete the well, or not.  The question is, can I finish the well in Arkansas by the 14th and turn the vehicle around to the westward trip in time.  If not Sue and Inga will turn the Camry into an Oregon Trail prairie schooner and do the trip without me.  I would hate to miss a westward road trip. 

A wiseguy once noted; "Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."  I hope nature can stick a little time into these plans, so everything does not happen at once.