Desert Christ Park is tucked up in a neighborhood just off the main drag in Joshua Tree. The park is home to a desert modern chapel and several larger-than-life-size concrete sculptures of Christian scenes. Self-taught sculptor Antone Martin built the statues in the 1950s as a monument to world peace. The figures themselves aren't particularly innovative, but gleaming in white on the quiet, desolate hillside they manage to be quite striking.

The only other visitors are a few teenagers hanging out in the picnic shelter.

I coast down Highway 62, a long steep road out of the high desert. I play phone tag with Eileen for a while, and finally find her in an outdoor mall in Palm Desert. She's been working at a pottery studio all day. We leave for the Salton Sea in the dark, stopping for dinner at a Del Taco. Del Taco serves the same items as Taco Bell, just a tiny bit better.