“Libby, wanna take my position?” Mingo asks as I pick up the phone. The phone is crackly, not a good sign for a long conversation. I quickly rush to my office and grab a pen and notepad. Ok, now I’m ready.

“66.1957 North 14.75183 West,” Mingo relays. “We’re still moving, but that’s my most updated position. We’re stopping to take a break for awhile then we’re gonna continue on for another three to four hours,” he tells me. “Been a pretty nice day. No rain! The river’s doing good. We’re not lost!” he laughs a little.

I quickly ask how his shoulder is doing.

“About the same. It aches.” he says. “I’m up to taking eight Naproxen. It’s the maximum I can take a day.” We quickly talk about options for him to pull out of the river when he gets to the bridge. Crystal and I spent a good part of the day finding transportation services for him and the boat back to Tok. There are not many options for this part of the world, but we did come across a solution that will work, if he chooses to do that.

“I still don’t know what I want to do. I just need to make a decision,” he says after I explain that for the Saturday afternoon pickup we have to make the reservation tomorrow. He asks me to do some more research on getting him and his boat from Emmonak (on the coast of Alaska) back to Fairbanks.

I can tell he’s conflicted about leaving at the bridge. He wants to stay and continue on to the Bering Sea because he’s put so much effort into this expedition. But his body is not cooperating. His hurt shoulder is continuing to compromise a lot of things, mainly his ability to paddle through the river safely.

“Lemme think more about it tonight and I’ll call you back first thing tomorrow morning with what I’m gonna do,” he tells me. A minute later the sat connection drops. At least we got enough time to talk about the important stuff.

A few hours later my phone rings again.

“Go ahead and make the reservation,” he says as soon as I pick up the phone. I’m a little shocked. I didn’t expect to hear from him so soon. And I thought he’d want to hear his options for Emmonak before he made the decision.

“Um, OK,” I say. “I found some info about flights.” I relay the information I found, very little but enough to get him back to Tok if he makes it that far down the river.

“Yeah, as much as I want to continue, I don’t think it’s a viable option,” he responds. “We just paddled for the last three hours in a really strong headwind. I can feel my other shoulder starting to tighten up,” he tells me. “I know my body and know when it’s reached it’s limits.” He sounds tired, but resolved. The conflict I heard earlier is gone but it has been replaced with tinges of disappointment.

I know Mingo pretty well (he is my dad, after all!). When it comes to pain, he’s tougher than most of the population. The decision to stop because of his shoulder is significant – a true indication of the degree of the injury. (This is a guy who when I was younger tried to drive himself to the hospital after being severely electrocuted!)

We quickly talk about the logistics for Saturday. He’ll have to be at the river pick-up point before 4pm. He’ll arrive in Fairbanks around midnight. Then he’ll pick up a different shuttle back to Tok at 7 AM. 40 Mile Air, the company who drove his truck back from Eagle, will deliver his truck to the drop off point in Tok so he’s all set once he reaches town.

There are a few snags in the plan that he’ll have to figure out along the way, such as how to get him and his boat from the drop off point in Fairbanks to the pick up point for the Tok shuttle (we have to use two different companies for the return trip). Plus, he’ll need to figure out where to stay or hang out between the drop off time (midnight) and the pickup time (7 AM). He seems unconcerned. After navigating through the Yukon River, I image these are pretty mundane challenges at the moment.

As you can see, I had a busy day yesterday getting some of Mingo’s pictures and journal excerpts published on the blog and getting the sponsors section updated on his website. In the middle of all this excitement, Mingo called to check in and fill me in on his day kayaking the previous day (Saturday 6/27).

“Hey Lib. It rained like a big dog yesterday,” Mingo began. “Got hit by a microburst. We were paddling then all of a sudden the wind picked up to 40-50 miles an hour. Had to paddle like dogs to get back to shore,” Mingo tells me. “Then it rained hard for the next 2½ - 3 hours. It was a good day today because everyone was safe but it was sure wet and miserable.”

“But we got into Fort Yukon and were welcomed by everyone. They gave us chocolate and 2 5-gallon bottles of water and let me charge the phone up,” Mingo continued. “A big thank you goes out to David, Heidi and the gang from Arctic Circle Baptist Church. Gotta put that up on the website. We hung out talking to Philip by the fire until around midnight. Last night we were just trying to stay warm and dry out.”

I quickly ask how his shoulder is doing, especially after a rough day like today.

“I think I damaged something in the upper shoulder. I’m getting some numbness in my hands,” he tells me. “It’s another 5 days to the Bridge. Then I’ll figure out what I’m gonna do. I feel like the decision is already being made for me.”

He asks me to check on some flights between Fairbanks and a couple of small villages along the river so he has some options. I update him on some of the comments we’ve gotten through the blog and Facebook. He was very pleased to hear to hear from everyone.

Mingo, Ulley and Marcus had an exhausting and dangerous day on the Yukon yesterday. It seems they are kayaking when they can - day or night. Sharron received a call late last night from Mingo (since it was already past midnight CST here).

She said they are doing well but exhausted and soaked to the bone. They had to escape some microbursts today which on a river that is now about two miles wide is not a quick and easy feat. They did make it to shore in somewhere in Fort Yukon and were in the process of making their way through the Refuge.

Mingo’s shoulder is still aching and he’s now having some numbness in his hand. The group should be reaching the Yukon River Bridge on the Dalton Highway sometime late Sunday or early Monday.

Sharron said Mingo sounded tired. And as they were hanging up, she heard one of the guys in the background say, “We’re gonna do what the locals do. We’re gonna drink beer tonight!” Indeed, after a day like today, a little celebrating sounds like it’s in order.

Day 4 was Friday, June 27th. Mingo usually calls at night so I went about my business during the day. As 8:30ish (CST) approaches, I started getting anxious, ready to hear what he encountered today on the water. Nine o’clock rolled around. Nine-thirty. Ten o’clock. Still no call. Well, I guess I’ll just head to bed, I figured.

Saturday morning my husband and I woke up and went yard sale-ing for a bit. It wasn’t until we returned home that I realized I’d completely walked out of the house without my phone. Ack! There were two messages waiting - one from my dad and one from Sharron.

“Hey, we’re safe on an island upriver from Fort Yukon,” was all Mingo recorded before the sat phone dropped the signal. OK, that’s good news.

After listening to the next message from Sharron and calling to follow up, I learned that Mingo ran into some wind problems on the river. He and Ulley found an island to hang out on and ended up putting in late (around 10 pm Alaska time). His shoulder was still hurting. He got to see and photograph a lynx! And he and Ulley had a new group-mate, a guy from Sweden joined up with them.

As I hung up the phone I thought that this is truly turning into an adventure, the type you only read about in storybooks. Yet this was one Mingo was actually living. How lucky!

PS - GPS coordinates of the island they stayed on were 65 degrees 5759 North 14 degrees 4041 West.