Fallen trees and mountain tubing

Back to Hawaii for a post to let you know what's going on in the here and now. Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the kitchen talking on the phone when I heard a loud crack, what sounded like paint balls being shot at my screen door, and the ground shook. Immediately the TV went to fuzz and the phone line went dead. I was so startled I was shaking. It didn't take long to figure out what happened...
Half of the mango tree at the front of my house fell over! It wasn't overly windy and although there were a lot of mangoes on the branches, you think a tree would be self-sustaining. The trunk looked pretty solid too. Thought I would share some photos of the tree.
It's massive!
Here's the after photo--there's a young man that lives with my landlord and he came out with a machete and chopped up the tree. Rick and I helped (Kristin was gone for the weekend) by picking up all the mangoes and using pruning shears to cut smaller branches. It only took us an hour or so. Apparently mangoes have the same toxicity as poison oak for some people (people like Kristin and I) and this morning I had massive bags under my eyes and both the upper and lower eyelids were completely red and swollen. And itchy. Awesome.

Sunday a bunch of us headed up to Wailua irrigation ditch to go tubing. To give you an idea of the setting, picture the waterfalls and mountains from Jurassic Park. Yup, that's it. I was told we rode in the ditch, through a tunnel, and ended up in a pool at the base of a waterfall. There were 7 of us and I foolishly hopped in my tube first.

I don't know what I was thinking. I had never been on this adventure before, and one of my friends that had been here before brought a headlamp. But I went for it. What I didn't count on was a twisting, completely dark, long tunnel. That's what I got. It was fairly narrow too. So dark. I think I screamed like a little girl half the time as my tube bounced off a wall and switched directions.

We made it to the end of the tunnel where we sat in the clear (and fairly cold) pool of water. We spent a long time here, hanging out. Eventually we climbed back up and rode the ride again. Pretty fun. Cheap too--just the cost of a floatie, beer, and gas. Nothing like a relaxing weekend to start the week off right.