Mini Mokies, Mechanical Failures & The Island of Elba
By Sharon Miller

October 2004

During one of our annual European vacations, my family and I traveled to the Island of Elba.  The name may ring a bell to some of you because it is the island off the western coast of Italy, where Napoleon was exiled.  We had never been there, and due to this, we really had no idea how mountainous or large the island was.  After missing the ferry by less than five minutes, and having to wait another hour for the next one, we finally arrived on the island and went to the place where we had reserved our rental car.  Now I say car, for lack of a better term, but what we had really rented was what the Italian’s called a “Mini Mokie.”  Let me explain, a mini mokie is what I would call, the love child of a jeep and a go cart.  It was, in fact, a very miniature jeep sans the rugged four wheel drive off-roading qualities that a normal jeep would possess.  There were six of us traveling together this time around, and after seeing the mini mokies, we knew it would be a challenge to fit all of us and our bags into the two that we had reserved.  Nevertheless, we did not panic, we simply set about the task of strapping our backpacks to the car.  After several failed attempts, we finally managed to secure our bags in a way that satisfied most of us, so we all squeezed in and began the trek to our hotel.  This is when we discovered the mountains and the fact that our mini mokies had very small engines.  The mokies did just fine on flat surfaces or downhill, but when we came to an uphill, it would all but stall out.  As we slowly crept our way up each and every hill, the poor natives of the island would unwittingly get stuck behind us, desperate but unable to pass us on the two lane winding roads.  When we finally did make it to the hotel, we pulled into the gated parking lot and parked amongst BMWs and Mercedes.

Relieved that we made it with our lives, we checked into our beautiful hotel, which was situated on its own vegetable and fruit garden.  Our meals, which were provided by the hotel, consisted of fresh fruits, vegetables, and quite often fresh fish.  It was glorious.

The next day, we decided to leave our mokies parked snuggly in their spots and rented a motor boat to take out into the Mediterranean Sea.  We all piled into the small boat and cruised out into the open water.  After about forty-five minutes, we stopped to swim and enjoy the cool  refreshing water.  Once we had all taken a dip, and climbed back into the boat, my mom went to start the engine.  Nothing happened.  She tried again, and got only a weak stutter.  Beginning to get a little nervous and knowing that every moment we were drifting farther out to sea, we looked around, found the boats paddles and began trying to row ourselves back to shore.  As those of us in front, continued the fruitless effort of rowing, our mother, a mechanical genius, sat in back and worked on the engine.  Finally, and to the delight of our tired arms, we heard her crank up the engine and it give a deafening roar.  Not knowing if the engine was going to die again, we quickly headed back to the island and thanked our lucky stars that we were not lost at sea.

After another beautiful day enjoying the island, it was time for us to head back to the mainland.  However, despite our better judgment, we decided to drive around the south side of the island, which was a much longer journey than our original route.  The drive was quite enjoyable and the scenery was amazing and considering all the mechanical problems we already had, the idea of another mechanical failure was the last thing on all of our minds.  Nevertheless, on the final stretch of the journey around the island, we came to a hill larger than any we had faced.  Amazingly, the mini mokies made it all the way to the top, and we thought we were home free as we started the descent.   Kim was driving the front mini mokie with Tara and Wade as her passengers, and Mom was driving the back mini mokie with Dad and me.  As we came to the bottom of the hill, and started to go around a sharp corner, Mom went to press on the brakes and found her foot going all the way to the floor.  She tried again, with no avail, the brakes on our mini mokie were completely gone.  In front of us, Kim had slowed down and was beginning to turn the corner, as we rushed up behind her.  Trying to hold on, I screamed out to Kim, hoping she would get out of our way.  Hearing me, she swerved to the right side of the road, enabling Mom to swing around her, nearly missing a head on collision with another, full-sized car.  Still, we were careening down the mountain, so my dad yelled at me to pull the emergency brake.  I pulled it as hard as I could, and thankfully, we came to an abrupt stop in the middle of road.  Visibly shaken by the experience, we inched our mokie over to the side of the road, and sent the other one down to the car rental place.  Luckily, they made it and were able to bring an actual car back to pick us up.

Looking back, it is easy to laugh at the adventure and chock it up to a great experience worth writing about.  However, as I look back on that trip, I can not help but think we were all lucky to make it off the Island of Elba alive.

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