Do TARANTULAS live in Texas?

For about the last two years I have been walking at a park about 5 miles from my house. It has paved trails and some mountain biking trails and an occasional armadillo and maybe a field mouse or two. I've been taking the babies almost daily for the last month to walk and just get out of the house. Generally I walk with the babies and Rich runs and we meet up after about 50 minutes. My crazy husband does something called "hill repeats" where he runs up and down the hill as fast as he can. It looks miserable but funny to watch when he is running pushing the stroller. Beckett screams when he goes too fast.
Anyway, on Friday I was on the paved trail and this couple was stopped in front of me with their Labrador dog. As I passed them they said that there was a tarantula on the trail and their dog alerted them and would not walk any further. Sure enough, about 50 feet ahead of them there was a huge hairy spider crawling in the grass. I got pretty close and took a picture with my camera phone. I was just kicking myself for not packing my camera in the diaper bag. I had about 15 diapers, 40 wipes, 3 sets of clothes, 3 burp cloths, 3 pacifiers and 1 bulb syringe but I forgot my camera.
I thought it was pretty exciting to see something like that in the wild (as wild as suburban Dallas can be) and thought the babies were lucky to see such a cool spider. I had heard really good things about tarantulas from my cousin Eowyn and her husband, Christopher. He had or has a tarantula and I seem to remember hearing stories about him napping and snuggling with his tarantula so figured that it wasn't about to jump up and get us.
When I met up with Rich later I took him back to the spot but the spider was gone. Too bad!
Rich and I went back to the park on Sunday (two days later) and again I was walking the babies and I saw something black walking across the sidewalk in front of me. Low and behold it was what looked like the same spider. I couldn't believe it. I was about a mile from where I saw last time. In two years going to this park the most exciting thing I have seen is a hawk and an occasionally what appears to be an awkward first date. Luckily, this time I had my camera...




Is this really a tarantula or another spider who got into a bottle of Rogaine? And I wonder if it was the same spider? Either way, it was pretty exciting and the triplets got a good lecture on not picking up hairy spiders but just looking instead.


(Eloise, Beckett, Adeline getting back into the car after our walk)