Knife not big enough...Spiders

Funny thing happened to me on the ...... yeah, you probably don't want to read yet another article/blog/email/etc that starts off with that, so I will tell you that my wife, daughter and myself all went to Tahquamenon Falls this past Saturday.  We haven't been there in a couple of years and made the day out of it which included hiking part way to the upper portion of the falls which is 4 miles one way of hiking through different types of terrain of medium difficulty.  Typically, this wouldn't be much of an ordeal, but my wife had surgery that involved her hip about 2 months ago and it not quite fully healed so we only made it in about about a mile or so before we turned back due to her discomfort.  It was beautiful day and fun filled.

So what about the spider?  Being a blog about knives and carrying Spyderco brand products, you would think that maybe what I am referring to, but you would be wrong.  On our ventures down that trail, we came across the largest spider I have ever seen in Michigan outside of a zoo or pet store.  My hands are of average size and from leg tip to leg tip, that spider would fill the palm of my hand which is a good 3.5" to 4.0" across.  Did I mention that I don't like spiders, especially big spiders?  Ironically, I was carrying a Spyderco knife, but it just didn't make me feel safe at all.  This is the actual picture of the spider:

Not good enough?  You say that only video will suffice?  You're in luck!  You can hear my daughter giving me directions and her start to yell "butter noodles!" towards the end, which is a lot easier on the ears then what I was thinking of saying...

I was tapping on the tree with my sunglasses (the expensive 2.99 pair from our local hardware store) and standing off to the side so I didn't have a clear view of the spider.  Before this, I had attempted to show the size of the spider in comparison to a $10.00 bill and the spider attacked the bill!  When I retracted the bill, rather quickly I might add, the spider retracted into the crevice in the tree as you can see in the video.

My first thoughts was that this spider was a wolf spider based on it's appearance, apparently Michigan is also home to a water spider and based on what Googled, that is what we happened upon.  I hope it is the last one I see.

I don't want any of you to have nightmares about this spider, so I included this photo of a Primrose moth, which until a couple of weeks ago, I didn't know existed, especially in Michigan:

This picture was taken at the Pendills Creek National Fish Hatchery near the water fountain where there were several of these hanging around on the wall and fountain.  The picture doesn't do this justice.

Rob