Thoughts on autumn and life

Have you ever found yourself on the road and you've traveled many miles from home before you suddenly realize what you should have brought with you, that you forgot to bring? For me, it's one of those "doggone it" moments.
Yesterday, I had another in a long litany of "doggone it"s when Ann and I headed up to the Uintas for some views of the fall colors. We were about forty miles from our home when we passed the first body of water and I realized that I was heading up into some great fishing lakes and had not thought to at least throw in the fishing gear. "Doggone it!" I said. "I should've brought my fishing stuff."
Life is like that too. We sometimes find ourselves many miles down the road of life before we realize we should've brought something along that we didn't. Too late to go back and pick up whatever it was we left behind, we soldier on, learning to live with whatever we brought with us.
As we drove up further into the Mirror Lake highway forests, I soon found myself looking at all the beautiful autumn colors. It's mostly quakies up there, so mostly yellow, but some of them had turned an orange/red that was spectacular. I snapped several pictures as we drove the dirt roads, we picked up several rocks for decorating our yard, and generally had a great time out there in the great outdoors.

Quakies near Whitney Reservoir in the Uintas

Shane and Ann enjoying the day

Some of the leaves were already down. Imagine this a week ago.

But, as we drove down, back past the lakes, I couldn't help thinking that I wish I had my fishing stuff.