Adventures at Wildwood Canyon.

"Oh, this is going to be awesome!" Eric said, swerving the car back onto Oak Glen Road, and frantically scanning the ground from the windows.
"What? What??" I kept asking, failing to see what had caught his attention. Cars whizzed by, other drivers befuddled by the maneuver.
"I saw a Tarantula in the dirt over there" he turned the car around once more "...dang it. I can't find him anymore." Seemingly defeated, he motioned to turn homeward again.
I quickly weighed the possibilities and asked "Should we just get out and look for him?"
"Really?" Obviously he had been hoping for such an answer.
"Um.. yeah, sure." I said.
So, we trekked a few yards up the road, and there he was... Furry and crumpled (by his own wishes, not by the impression of a tire-track) in the middle of the right-hand lane. Eric did what any self-respecting male would do and threw some rocks at it, meanwhile searching for a stick with which to poke the little guy. I kept a safe distance, and we both jumped and backed away whenever our arachnid companion decided to mosey over in any direction.
Then Eric moved from Stage 1: Intimidation, to Stage 2: Confiscation, and we ran back to the car for "some tupperware" which Eric says every car should have, and ours-apparently- doesn't, which left us rifling through the junk left over from long days at work and trips for fast food. I had thrown away my Starbucks cups the night before, so we settled for a plastic bag. The bag actually turned out to be a good choice, since it was virtually invisible when placed, open, on the ground. Once we had tricked him into walking into our trap, we quickly panicked, realizing we had nothing to close the bag with, and spidey was pretty angry... so Eric clutched the top of this bag and we ran towards the car, again bewildering -or amusing- other motorists with the sight of a lanky fellow in 1880's clothing holding a plastic bag at arm's length and running down the road with me trotting at his heels.
Then we used my ponytail to close up the bag, and I felt sheepish for not thinking of that in the first place.

And that's why there's a Tarantula (now in tupperware) on our kitchen table.

This is NOT the Tarantula we caught, but he looks like this.

We were supposed to bring him with us to work, to show the boys and then release him in an empty field, probably near where we found him... but somehow we "forgot" him and I worry that Eric may have more intensive plans... *Dun dun Dun*