If you know me, you know there are two questions I will always answer “no” to. The first: Are you too full for ice cream? The second: Do you know how to get to (enter location here)?

My lack of sense of direction is legendary, to the point that it’s almost a little frightening. One time I left the barn, a place I’d driven to and from probably 100 times at that point, drove for 30 minutes, and then realized I had no idea where I was. Somewhere along the way, I’d zoned out and taken several wrong turns. It took the better part of the evening to find my way home, and that was after I used my best navigation trick at the time—go in the opposite direction my internal compass is telling me.

So when a kind family member, one who’s been on the receiving end of many tearful calls—“I’m totally lost, can you look this up on Google Maps for me?”—gave me a GPS for Christmas a few years ago, I thought I’d found the answer to all my directional troubles.

I assumed the GPS—let’s call him “Garmin”—would be especially useful when I started working for the Chronicle. Life was hard enough when I was just driving aimlessly around the town where I lived, but now it’s not uncommon for me to end up in three different cities in a month. Pick up a rental car from the airport, get in rental car, find horse show, find hotel, that’s often how my weekends go. Being able to enter my destination address and then just follow simple instructions (“Turn left here. Turn right at light.”) sounded useful. What could be easier than that?

But that was before I realized that a GPS system is a funny thing, with a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde personality and a sense of humor. Sometimes the machine serves as a humble, benevolent servant on your behalf. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, the GPS is clearly out for blood. I don’t know what transgressions I committed in previous lives, but the GPS clearly does, and it doesn’t mind punishing me for them.

There was the time, on the way home from the Rolex Kentucky CCI****, when we booked a hotel in Hurricane, W.Va., as our layover spot on the eight-hour drive. With three exhausted staffers in the car after a long weekend, we were eagerly anticipating the comfort of our Hampton Inn beds. The hotel wasn’t visible off the interstate (which should have been our first clue of the events to come), so we exited and put the address in the Garmin.

We were all slightly alarmed when it told us to turn down a side road (“Drive nine miles,” said Garmin), but none more than our editor and staunch GPS-opponent, Beth Rasin.

“This doesn’t seem right,” she said, as we drove into increasing darkness away from civilization. The road turned from a two-lane paved road to a windy, one-lane paved road. Then it turned to gravel. With Beth growing progressively more panic-stricken (“Is that other car following us?”) as we passed salvage yards, tiny churches and dilapidated residences, Mollie Bailey and I continued having faith in Garmin. And I kept that faith right up until he announced, “Approaching destination on left in 0.2 miles.”

The only thing on the left was a field with a small trailer at the end of a long driveway. We turned into the driveway, and the car we worried might be following us turned into the driveway immediately next door. It was then we realized we didn’t have cell service and couldn’t remember how to get back to the highway. This situation seems funny now, not exhausted, not carsick and not lost at the end of someone’s field in West Virginia, but I can assure you that, in the moment, we were experiencing some real fear. While I’m not a fan of them, I’ve seen enough horror movies to know how they start.

We eventually found our way to the Hurricane Hampton Inn, nowhere near where Garmin told us it was, and got a good night’s sleep. In the light of day, I was willing to forgive the machine.

In fact, I forgave it enough to use it when Kat Netzler and I went up to Quebec for the Bromont CCI last weekend.

After flying into Burlington, Vt., we had about a two-hour drive to the horse show. All went well at first, a smooth drive up the interstate and across the border. Then Garmin started getting a little confused, re-routing us a few times when it seemed like we were on the right track. Eventually it sent us down a long gravel road, past farmhouses, streams, innumerable cows and wonderfully scenic landscapes. Southern Quebec in the summer is a beautiful place, and even though it took us longer than it should have to reach the event, I can’t say that was time poorly spent. (Our rental car company might disagree since the car sustained a few dings from errant rocks.) If I’d looked up the trip on a map (impossible, since I can’t read a map, but let’s pretend), maybe we would have taken the “main road” through the area, missing the smaller towns entirely.

I guess I’m still not sure about Garmin, and I’ve realized we have quite a complicated relationship. Does he hate me? Why does he want to send me into standstill traffic sometimes, far away from my hotel other times? Why does he sometimes want my trip to take twice as long as it should? Did he want three Chronicle co-workers to get murdered in the backwoods of West Virginia?

Or is Garmin my friend, helping me discover new tracks, round barns, stunning vistas? Maybe he’s just reminding me that the road less taken sometimes is the better one, even if it doesn’t always lead to the Hampton Inn you were hoping for.

Lisa Slade

Editor’s Note: I truly hope that Lisa is never, say, lost at sea, without any technology, because she would not find land. It might be in her best interest if someone in the office spun her around on a daily basis and then asked her which compass direction she was facing. Just for her own sake. And those of her coworkers in the same car.

The Chronicle staff is always having adventures of one sort or another when we’re out traveling to bring you horse sport news coverage from around the world. In the Chronicle staff blog, we take the opportunity to share some of the more interesting behind-the-scenes stories of an equestrian journalist on assignment that you won’t find in the magazine.