By Diana Estill

In search of adventure, I spent a week driving on the wrong side of the road. Well, truthfully, I was a passenger -- but that only amplified my experience. You see, I'm the kind of gal whose vocal cords freeze in a crisis. My husband, though, is a screamer.

"We're going to be KILLED!" he said.

And since I had neither a steering wheel nor a brake pedal on my side of the car, I considered these might be his final words.

As usual, I'd reserved a rental car for our vacation. Only this time, we were on Grand Cayman Island -- where locals drive on the left and tourists sometimes forget.

We'd just left the airport in one of those Mr. Bean cars -- essentially, a coffin with wheels. "Do you have the directions?" my husband shouted. He clenched the steering column, both hands fisted. "Do you know where the heck we're supposed to be going?"

Of course, I did. I had the name of the town and our hotel address. And I had a rental agency map that looked like origami. What more did he want?

I spun the map several times until it's printing righted. "We have to go north," I instructed, "toward Boddentown."

"Which way is north?" he demanded.

"What am I? A compass?"

"I'm about to crash this thing! Will you tell me which way to go?"

There was no need to yell. I was sitting close enough to feel his pulse, which was synchronized with the windshield wipers he'd inadvertently triggered. (The wiper switch was on the left side of the steering column, where the signal lever should have been.)

He twisted and pulled at every knob within reach. "How do you turn these things off?" Swatting the signal arm, he set the indicators blinking in counter-time with the wipers. All this added commotion caused him to brake hard and swerve left into a commercial driveway. Right then, one of the three suitcases we'd stacked in the back seat flew forward and clobbered him in the head.

(CONTINUE...)