A Tale from the Trail

The other day I went for a trail run with a friend who absolutely insisted that I take the lead on an infrequently used path.  I smugly believed that this was because I’m the faster runner.  Not too long into the run, I was humbled – being the leader just meant that I had to go through the tall grass and overgrown areas first. My friend is very smart.

Since we’ve seen a number of snakes (luckily, not up close) and I'm notorious for tripping, I had my eyes focused on the ground.  Unfortunately, this meant that I didn’t duck quite enough as I was running under a tree branch and it got caught in my hair.  I could tell I had a few twigs left in my hair, but proceeded to run ahead. 

Soon after, I turned to talk to my friend.  Her eyes widened and she shouted, “Stop!” She then gasped, “You have a gigantic spider in your hair!”  With a few quick sweeps of my fingers through my hair, an enormous spider with twig-like legs was knocked to the ground.  With its leg-span, it was as big as the palm of my hand.  My friend grabbed her phone and snapped a picture.  She was shaking and didn’t want to get too close…so it’s a bit blurry:

Unfortunately, we noticed that there were only seven legs left on the giant arachnid.  My friend pulled the eighth leg out of my hair…along with a big glob of yellow goo the spider left as a gift.  Blech!  I guess I can forgive her for making me go first.  Still, I won't fall for that again! :)

In case you are wondering...we did some internet research and found that spider was a "golden silk orb-weaver."  We learned that its venom is "potent, but not lethal to humans."  Very reassuring...especially after having run around with one on my head.  (In all seriousness, I've never heard of anyone being harmed by a spider here.)  Here’s a pic of a golden silk orb-weaver with all its legs: