Vacationing Tarantulas

Senorita goes diva on me and ends our shoot

So... A couple of weeks back I'm in Vegas for two days, assisting on 2 shoots with a couple of UFC guys for an "unnamed" magazine's cover. We show up the day before the shoots go down to scope out one of the locations (The photog had never shot at that gym before). That night me and the other assistant head out to a restaurant down the street from our hotel for some grub. Anyway, to make a short story long, on the way back my fellow assistant noticed a strange object in the parking lot a few feet away. The moment I turned my head to take a gander at what my bewildered companion was pointing at, said object began climbing up the curb it was sitting on! Now, I'm not a big fan of spiders, but I'm no sissy either. I don't "freak out" If some little 8-legged-insect-muncher runs across the wall in my bedroom, I just squash 'em and go on about my business. But, this has to be the biggest spider I've ever seen (in the wild anyway). It was huge! The thing was about as big as my hand.

Needless to say, I ran across the parking lot to grab my camera from the hotel. I'd neglected to bring it because I figured "nothing interesting could possibly happen between our hotel and the restaurant; good call on that one James.

Now, with camera in hand, I headed back to the parking lot across the street. I was quite sure that the "moment" had passed and that the giant monstrosity I'd so lovingly named "Senorita Hairy Legs" would be long gone by now. Well, after scanning the parking lot for about 20 mins. I turned to walk back to my hotel and caught something moving with my peripheral vision. Low and behold, there she was just a few yards away near a curb at the edge of the parking lot. I quickly moved into position and snapped off a few shots before the little bugger got irritated and ended our portrait session. She abruptly told me the shoot was over and that I'd need to contact her publicist if, for any reason, I wanted to re-shoot. Diva.

The Moral: Never go anywhere without a camera... EVER!

Her good side

Where I found her

"We're done here, I'm heading home"

Tarantulas like to vacation in Vegas for a little debauchery and glamour just as much as people do... who knew?!