June 2, Thursday: Better (Cliff) Homes and Gardens, White Russia's Barefoot Traveler, Arizona's Meteor Crater

The "Barefoot Traveler," on the left, the author, and the traveler's son, Nikita, at an overlook enroute to Meteor Crater and Walnut Canyon National Monument.

Distance: Not worth mentioning

Weight: Backpack--about 20 pounds, but not counted
Weather: Overcast, 90s, mostly
Elevation gain: Approximately 300 steps at Walnut Canyon.
Accumulation elevation gain for 2016: 41,488 feet. (Conservative figure; doesn't include steps)
Accumulated distance hiked: 299.97 km (excludes today's adventure)

Today was more about sight seeing and less about hiking. It featured meeting an international barefoot traveler, seeing the largest extant meteor crater on the planet and visiting abandoned Indian dwellings.

The traveler was Vladimir Nesin, the gentleman in the photo at the top with the naked head and feet to match (not pictured). He had beautiful feet. It's hard to believe they've walked over several continents, but this is what the "Barefoot Traveler" claims on his Web site, vnesin.com,

I met Vladimir at a Highway 89a overlook while enroute to visit Walnut Canyon National Monument's Indian ruins, and Meteor Canyon east of Flagstaff Arizona. I first noticed his backpack, and my traveling companion, Mary Vesper, asked him whether he was training for a hike. Then we saw his feet, and he explained that he travels without the comfort of shoes. As a three-time bunyon surgery survivor, I affirm that he had a pair of the most beautiful male feet I've ever laid eyes on -- and after my surgeries I've paid a lot of attention to feet with straight toes.

Vladimir is from Drogichin, a town in Belarus (White Russia) Here's a sampling of the places he  has visited, as indicated by videos on his Web site:

China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Dominican Republic & Haiti, India, Kanchatka and Sakhalin, Archangel and Dagestan, Nepal, Bangdalesh, Australia, Alaska, South Africa, Zimbawbe, Niger, Egypt, Turkey, Zaire, Jordan, Cameroon, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, South Korea, Mexico, Guatemala,  Seattle, Vancouver Island -- to name a few.

His very impressive Web site includes the following map of his travels:

The barefoot travels of Vladimir Nesin

Walnut Canyon National Monument

Walnut Canyon is noteworthy for the somewhat preserved home site of early native Americans. They knew how to make rugged country liveable, as the photos that follow indicate.

The canyon is deep enough to protect the foliage from the unremitting heat of Northern Arizona. The walls are steep with plenty of overhangs to allow for shelter

Rock overhangs were divided up with stone walls to provide living spaces.

These partially-restored ruins indicate the size of rooms beneath the overhang. The stairs and smooth path on the right were post-discovery additions for tourists.

Deep in the canyon the stones are heavily worn an the foliage is very green.

Near the top, an old tree trunk testifies to the toughness of life "on the edge."

Just below the visitor's center large boulders --limestone, perhaps--tip downward in anticipation of their long, glacially slow odyssey to the sea.

Mary Vesper, my traveling companion, and Meteor Crater. This was created 50,000 years ago by a meteor estimated to be 50 yards in diameter, coming in so fast and at such a steep angle that it was an estimate 500 feet below ground before the kinetic energy of the earth and meteor colliding created an enormous explosion that killed anything within 10 miles -- instantly!

The largest meteor remnant discovered at the site. It weighs more than a small car.

A photo of a visitor's center photo. The black line at the bottom is the road to the visitor's center. The crater is aproximatley 500 feet deep. Its rim is above the surrounding landscape, thrown up by the force of the explosion and slowly eroding back into the hole. There were attempts to mine the crater, but they have long since been abandoned.

Sedona sunset

When you shoot sunset photos in Sedona, you don't aim west. You aim east, toward the red rock that's capturing the sun's evening rays. The gray sky displays smoke from one of several wildfires, most lightning-caused. The smoke enveloped Sedona in a morning haze but cleared up by nightfall.