I should have learned from my mistake. Or rather, Siri’s mistake.

Only six hours earlier, as Ron and I crisscrossed Washington, D.C., suburbia, I asked Apple’s new digital assistant for help finding a camera store.

“You want what?” Siri shot back.

“Take me to the closest camera store that sells professional-quality, 16-gigabite memory cards for the Canon 5D mark ii.”

“Looking for nearby steak restaurants that serve apple pie a la mode for dessert.”

Now, as we turned toward home, Ron and I were happy with our day’s work interviewing USPS stamp art directors — and we were eager for dinner. “I can skip lunch,” Ron had told me, “but when dinner comes, I’m gonna shut the place down.” Understanding the urgency of the situation, I turned to Siri once again.

“I’m sorry, I was unable to locate any restaurants suitable for replenishing the calories of someone who skipped lunch for a photo shoot,” she told me.

I changed my question: “Where can I find food?”

“I found three 7-Elevens nearby. Anybody in the mood for a mean hot dog?”

#SiriFail

We pressed forward, deciding that searching for food was better than sitting on the highway-turned-parking-lot, and so followed a two-lane road that paralleled the Potomac River — even as it turned to gravel under our wheels.

Ten miles passed. Ron made a less-than-veiled threat about cannibalism.

“You’re just going to take this for another mile,” I said, trying to stay positive, “and then . . . oh . . . wait . . . oh, dear. . . cluster-cuss.”

I noticed the tiny, winding line I’d been following on my trusty Google map stopped at a river. I looked closer. Sure enough, the yellow line turned to gray dashes atop the river. As I peered at the map, I noticed too late that the road we would have to join — the one that would eventually take us back to civilization — was called White’s Ferry Road.

The car inched forward as we peered through the mist, gauging our options. Ron nervously checked the rearview mirror, listening for the heady neigh of the British calvary. Or perhaps for flanking banjos. But no matter how we looked at it, the Potomac stood between us and dinner — and our only option was to find a way across it.

As it turns out, White’s Ferry is an actual functioning ferry that takes people from Virginia, through Maryland, and into Washington, D.C. In the age of digital assistants and satellite-based navigation, people still line up, drive a car onto a metal barge, and float across a river on their way to and from work.

Despite the inconvenience, there was something adventurous about taking that second road and venturing into the unknown. And thankfully, Ron and I like adventure. It’s that same quest that drives us to search for the perfect camera angle, the best lighting, or just a hot meal at the end of a long day. Especially the hot meal.

Thirty minutes later, we arrived on the other side of the murky river. Like that, our adventure was over as quickly as it had begun.

As Ron later said, we were never lost, there were just a few hours when we didn’t know where we were. I’m inclined to say that isn’t a bad thing, especially if there’s a delicious slice of pizza at the end of the journey.