42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

No one told me there were tarantulas in this area. I might’ve given considerable thought to not moving here if I’d known I would encounter tarantulas just crawling across the road.
Note to self: ask about spider population. (And I don’t think anyone mentioned the healthy black widow population, either.)

How I found out:
I took a meandering drive the other day. I meant to go to Kings Canyon National Park, but was stopped by fog so thick I couldn’t see oncoming vehicles, and could barely see the white fog line. Because I was up in the foothills, I didn’t know whether the fog would clear, or if it would make my trip to the park pointless.
I turned around, and decided to head to Pine Flat reservoir, and rediscovered a delightfully windy, torturous road on the way. It’s a lot more fun to do hill and mountain driving when you can actually see. At least, it is after you’ve been driving nearly blind for several miles.

Most of the drive was empty of other vehicles. I could drive as slow or fast as I wanted. I took a long, circular road around the reservoir, and was gleeful when I found paydirt. A vista of still water nestled in between hills.
I kept driving, with no destination in mind. I wasn’t even sure where the road would lead, or whether it would just end.

And then, I saw it.

Something crawling across the road. Something from a nightmare. A tarantula.
Fitting for the Halloween season, I suppose. But not for someone as terrified of spiders as I am.

I questioned whether I was seeing things. Or perhaps it was something more harmless, like a small turtle. Except turtles don’t move that fast, and don’t have that many legs.

I didn’t get a good look at the first tarantula. I didn’t want to. I just know that it quickly ambled across the road as if it was no big deal. It did it all the time.
I thought about hyperventilating, or turning around and seeing if it was my imagination. Dismissed both possibilities as silly. I was a little nervous, but fine.
So nobody told me there were tarantulas here. Fine.

I drove some more, stopped for pictures here and there. And there’s another one.
Now I knew I’m not imagining it. I swerved to avoid this one instintively, although another part of me thought I’d be glad to get rid of the bastard. One less tarantula on the road means one less for my nightmares.
But I don’t believe in running things over. You can’t be concerned about all animals without having some compassion for the most loathsome thing crawling across the road.
But I have no qualms about killing household spiders. Or begging other people to kill them for me.

I started to get morbidly curious. Did I really just see that? I’m tempted to turn around. An insane thought ran through my mind: what if I turn around and take a picture?I’ll get a closer look, and I’ll have proof.
Tarantulas, as far as I understand it, are not all that dangerous. They’re more scary than anything. But I didn’t want to make friends.

I kept driving, and then found signs pointing to the next blip on the map: 30 miles. The road was next to unpaved, and I didn’t cherish the thought of driving 30 more miles crowded by tarantulas. Maybe I’d find the head tarantula, like Hagrid’s friend in the Harry Potter books. I didn’t want to become a meal.

So I turned around, becoming more jumpy. Out of the corner of my eye, I occasionally see movement. I know I’m imagining things, because it always turns out to be nothing.
Except for when it wasn’t. I saw one or two more, and a big blob in the road that I suspect was a former tarantula.
I rolled up my windows at one point, since I was getting paranoid to imagine that an entire flock… gaggle… scary bunch… of tarantulas would fly into my window and if nothing else, scare the crap out of me.
Then I got hot, and rolled them back down.

I brought up my tarantula scare at work, first talking about my drive, and co-worker Lisa can tell, even before I get the word tarantula out of my mouth, what I saw.
You saw tarantulas, didn’t you, she asks matter-of-factly.
Apparently, you can see them in the foothills in the autumn.
There’s even a tarantula festival this weekend. Guess who won’t be going.