When I was prodded by my alarm at 6:30am to head out the door for my morning run, an unexpected crack of lightning quickly shelved my exercise routine.

As I was lamenting but secretly rejoicing in a guilt-free, dry and lazy, couch-potato day, it dawned on my husband that all those hours of  precipitation most likely added up to new lake-front properties around town, and waterfalls will be abundant.

A quick plan was drawn up as we breakfast-loaded, packed up our cameras, and hurried out of our high-n-dry loft to tour rain-soaked Hilo.

Outside and at ground level, Hilo was being drenched by billowing sheets of rain!  Gutters were overflowing with vast sheets of water. Curbs were lapped by rain water that couldn't drain fast enough.

But the real picture came into focus as we turned makai onto Kamehameha Avenue.  We could'nt get very far before we ran into a blockade.  Beyond the orange and white barrier was the newly formed Lake SoccerField which stretch from the municipal parking lot, across Kamehameha Avenue, spanning most of Wailoa River State Park, overflowing onto Ponahawaii Street in the north and Pauahi Street to the South.

We parked in the parking lot of Bayfront Park and put our cameras into overdrive.  We snapped up images of a couple of lonely vehicles stranded by thigh-high water.  A gas station was a man-made island.  I managed to capture a lone photographer, no doubt affiliated with some local news agency documenting the wet and wild conditions. My obvious amateur status managed to irritate him further by my video-taping of his documentory work. He made himself scarce.  He needed to meet some deadline, you see.

Next, we decided to buzz over to the bridge spanning Wailuku river on Wainaku Street.  There we beheld the disappearance of Maui's Canoe!  We were told that this particular finger of lava at the mouth of Wailuku River possesses a certain magical power that it will never be submerged.  So, there the said canoe was completely absent under tons of boiling brown water roaring it's way to the ocean.

Did I mention that spontaneous waterfalls were everywhere? Miniature cataracts are common place just about everywhere I looked.

Next, in order to validate that Hilo was under a flash flood warning we trekked up to Rainbow Falls. Well, Rainbow Falls was a super spectacle!

This was where soggy tourists and locals congregate in a drowning deluge!  Rainbow Falls' usual graceful cascade was now a bank-to- bank, bubbling-brown of boiling water!  The roar of falling water was tremendous and awe-inspiring!

By this time, we were more than wet, save for our cameras, which we took great pains to keep dry with the help of our trusty umbrellas.

We took refuge in our car, and drove home with our windshield wipers on turbo-high while swerving frequently around deep puddles and rushing rivulets.

Our watery odyssey in reality took us a scant one-mile radius out of our downtown loft in Hilo.

These past few wet days will be stored in my personal history as the "Great Rains of 2008". As I post this article, the weather service is forecasting a solid few more days of heavy rain falls.  So as we marvel at nature's mighty water-works, we Hiloans are certainly making picnic plans to be acted on ASASSA: As Soon as the Sun Shines Again.