Water Shoes and the Frenchman Coulee!

I have been avidly reading more aboout the barefoot Running concept, worried that I am just being drawn into a new fad! However the more I think about my childhood the more it makes sense.. anyway more about that later.
I really want to talk shoes. I have been practicing the technique of barfoot running but it is not easy in runners so I went to the local REI to check out the barefoot offerings. The toe shoes just turn me completely off so I looked at the Merrills and they are too big on my feet. So back to my research and I discover that a good, cheap beginning shoe is the old water shoe! So I tracked down a pair of barely used water shoes in a box in the garage and set off today to test them out on a hike. I read that it is good to walk around in my barefeet or hike in the water shoes to excersise my feet muscles.
Arriving at Frenchman Coulee I pulled on the water shoes and set off planning to walk just 2-3 miles on relatively flat ground. Here are my observations:

• I really enjoyed feeling the ground beneath my feet.
• No calf ache as I was led to expect.
• Occasionally painful however as I was walking on small basalt stones
• I noticed that my right foot had no trouble finding the good landings but my left foot occassionally made bad contact with sharp basalt and usually in the arch of my foot.
• I really noticed that I was walking on the ball of my foot a lot of the time.

In short I felt my first outing to be sucessful and I am looking forward to the next. ne more barefoot hike then I am ready for a run!
As for the water shoes they were great plus I saved $100! Also the Frenchman Coulee is just spectacular.