Spoiler Alert: Don’t read if you want to watch the K-drama “Good Bye Earth.” My advice is not to have such aspirations. Some of the story doesn’t make sense and isn’t well explained. Most of the characters are flat despite their backstories. And the backdrops had the full moon on the same horizon as the sun.
“What would you do if you only had 177 days left?” asked GF, because I mentioned that there were only 177 days left until the asteroid impact in the Netflix K-drama “Good Bye Earth” that I was watching. It’s a fair question, but I didn’t have an answer.
In “Good Bye Earth,” things go to hell in bits and pieces. All the evil people hang out at nightclubs and gambling halls, while all the good guys hang out at a church: depravity or kumbaya. Prisoners escape. They abduct children for nefarious purposes. People stop working. Supplies dwindle to nothing. The military holds out, but dwindling ammo limits their effectiveness. A child dies of a fever because there are no antibiotics. You would be lucky to survive long enough to experience the end of days.
Interestingly, “Good Bye Earth” seems to fall short on reconciliation and long on betrayal for those who abandon others to save themselves. It is short on forgiveness and long on revenge. Why should bad people live to see the end? They need to go now while we have the satisfaction of killing them for what they have done. Rest easy, for revenge is not on my list of things to do. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few people I would like to have kicked in the balls over the years (men and women alike), but I think that kind of satisfaction has to happen in the moment unless some damn white whale has bitten off your leg.
Doing whatever it takes to survive the last days is the realistic answer, but it misses the intent of her question. Implicit in the 177-day question is the assumption that all hasn’t gone to hell and one still has some agency. It’s a bucket list question about what you’d like to do if you had to decide, with the bucket list on a short leash. Also implicit in the scenario is the futility of a long-term legacy. If the Earth is going bye-bye, there is no need to worry about the world the children will have to live in. There won’t be one. We can burn off a tank or two of gas without any global warming guilt.
So, how would I find gratification if the world only had six months to live?
Our plan for the day was a hike on Ladder Trail in Painted Canyon on BLM land outside Mecca just north of the Salton Sea by way of motorcycles. It was six months since my last ride. The oil line was up to where it should be, but was the oil any good after six months of decay? The front tire looked low. Chris said not to worry. I trusted his judgment. Sunny skies were in the forecast after a few morning clouds. It was supposed to be nice inland but hot in the desert.
The whole day was weather-diverse. We rode in a fifty-five-degree marine layer that was taking its time burning off. We emerged from the clouds on the S-79 outside Santa Isabel, but it stayed chilly at altitude. That changed quickly as we dropped nearly four thousand feet in altitude to Borrego Springs from fifty-five to eighty-five in less than half an hour. At the first gas stop of the day, we shed layers in front of the fashionable club of Ducati riders. I can’t imagine they planned much more riding in the desert heat wearing their thick black leathers.
Mecca is a taqueria for hungry travelers who skipped breakfast. It’s also a tiny town on the north side of the Salton Sea.
From Mecca, we drove ten miles on an out-and-back graded dirt road to the Painted Canyon trailhead. The overly cautious sign warned that the road required a four-wheel drive, high-clearance vehicle. The road was hard-packed and well-graded, with only a few sandy patches. Deep sand is one of the things I hate the most on a ride. I’ve managed to topple over about five or six times, but never at any significant speed. I watched Chris wobble through one, instinctively extending his legs for balance, which is probably an excellent way to break both legs if it ever came to that. Even the best riders struggle in the sand on heavy bikes that aren’t made for it.
Painted Canyon was a pleasing juxtaposition of color arrangement from the outside with green creosote in the foreground, beige, brown, and red hills, and a blue sky in the back. It’s a maze of trails on the inside. Ladder Trail veered off the main canyon and disappeared into a crack in the wall face. Three short ladders provided access to the slot’s entrance. The slot canyon rivals “The Slot” in Anza-Borrego, with high walls and a path just wide enough so you don’t have to force your way through or turn sideways. The trail emerges onto the roof of the mesa, providing a panoramic view of the canyon and the mountains beyond. Jacinto towers to the west, snow patches still visible on its flanks.
Once on top, we were exposed to the heat and the sun. My water bottle had leaked over half its contents on the ride out, leaving us to share a half liter of water on a five-mile hike, a cause for concern but nothing we couldn’t handle. At the farthest reach of the hike, we dropped back into the canyon and headed downhill for the trek back. Desert bushes were laden with pollen-saturated yellow catkins. The ocotillo plants had leaves indicating recent rain. Wildflowers proliferated in their sparse desert way. Black and yellow birds scattered too quickly for a photo capture. Every bend seemed like a new picture. We descended to the lower canyon trail using an essential rope and ladder before returning to the trailhead and the road.
Mecca is a taqueria for dehydrated hikers who challenge the desert heat with a pint of water.
On the ride back through the desert to Borrego Springs, a steady wind blew snaking sand ribbons across the highway. Deep sand is the only thing I hate more than gusting winds on a motorcycle, but gusting winds are potentially more lethal. I’ve been blown five feet by wind gusts before, enough to push you into the oncoming lane or off the road if you are ill-positioned. The winds were strong enough to fatigue my neck muscles but not so strong to knock me off my line.
We pulled off the desert road to take stock of the weather. Nothing in the forecast prepared us for what we encountered. The blowing wind kicked up a sandy haze over Clark Dry Lake. The marine layer of clouds peered over the mountain wall to the west, which held back their ambition. The dark edge of a black cloud crossed over the desert floor from north to south at about Borrego Springs. The ominous cloud had two cyclonic-looking formations underneath. I’ve never seen a formation quite like it. It reminded me of the final scene in “The Terminator,” when Sarah Conner was standing at a gas station, heading off into the lightning-struck mountains of the Mexican desert.
As far as I know, these clouds were not harbingers of the apocalypse. I think they were lenticular clouds because of the layering visible at the edge of the front. According to people who keep track of such things, lenticular is from Latin, meaning shaped like a lentil. Take a look at a lentil for yourself. It’s a plausible explanation. The word was first applied to lenses that have the shape of a double-convex lens, curved on both sides.
Lenticular clouds are a standing wave pattern formed when winds blow over a fixed structure like a mountain. As humid air is pushed up and cools, it condenses into a cloud. The cloud dissipates as the air sinks back down and overcorrects by dipping lower than its original path. Layers of hot and cold in the stream give the lenticular cloud the pancake look. I have only seen these clouds in isolation, looking more like a stack of pillows than tornado breeding grounds. I speculate you get this unusual formation when combining a storm front with a standing wave pattern.
We were filling up for the motorcycle ride home at a gas station in Borrego Springs. The marine layer told us we were heading back into the cold, and we geared up. The fifty-two-degree temperatures confirmed our expectations.
What would I do with 177 days left? I want a few more days like this in the 177. With time short, I wouldn’t worry so much about kicking the bucket in a wreck. Kicking the bucket might even be a blessing in an actual apocalypse scenario. My usual thought when I leave the house on the motorcycle is to make it back alive. I wouldn’t have so much to lose if one of those cyclonic cells dropped out of the sky and swept me off to Oz. There is something exhilarating about surviving the ride, witnessing grandeur in the big and the small, and hiking through narrow slots and up and down ladders. I’m not sure it is something you can plan for. Maybe that is the source of the exhilaration. Put a few days on that list where you head out with a minimalist plan and see what happens. Take a pass on the kumbaya and depravity.
