City Creek is my most fabulous place to run around Salt Lake City. I was bummed when I moved here because Davis and Weber County have so many more running trails that are in nature and not just on the streets or in parks. City Creek is great because you don’t (usually) have to deal with traffic, and it’s a great place to be in nature and think.
Nic and I were running up City Creek last night, enjoying each other’s company and the pain that always accompanies running straight uphill for miles. Right before mile 1 ½, I noticed that he was slowing down. All of a sudden he screeched to a halt and held out his arm, so I was clothes-lined.
As he tried to block my view and push be backwards, I looked down to see a HUGE (about as big as a softball) tarantula (I’ll call him Mr. T) slowly crossing the road RIGHT BELOW MY FEET. If you know me, you know I have an irrational fear of spiders. I trace it back to my brother’s pet tarantula. I’m pretty sure he used to tease and torture me with it, although I’ve blocked out those horrible memories. :)
My first instinct was to yell “Kill it! Kill it!” Nic just looked at me like I was crazy since it probably would have just laughed in our faces if we would have tried. Mr. T knew he had us. He knew we were intimidated. He took his dear sweet time crossing the road, while we watched in awe.
Nic has been to all sorts of crazy places, including the Amazon where he saw all sorts of large, hairy, disgusting spiders. However, he said Mr. T was the biggest one he’d ever seen in nature. I felt this somewhat validated my freak-out reaction.
As soon as Mr. T had finally crossed to the other side of the road, we continued up the canyon. From that point on, I jumped whenever I saw anything as small as an ant crossing in front of me. A cute little deer even got me to jump backwards and let out a yell. It may be awhile before I am able to return to City Creek again, at least without Nic there to save me from nature. I think I’ll stick to the city parks and streets for awhile.
