Channel Mike

I recently explored all of the trails at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science. It was mildly warm, much nicer than the past month or two, but still humid and muggy. But I enjoyed the hike very much. I ended up clearing the trail of at least twenty spider webs that were crossing it. Some of them I was able to move over with my map, others I didn't see and ended up wearing on my shirt and face. But I wasn't bitten! Yeah! Even now, hours later, I'm still pulling webs out of my hair and stubble. It seems every time I move around, I feel another one somewhere. I wanted to write this because I encountered several spiders that made me curious, and I couldn't find anything in the museum about spiders. This page is a work in progress now as I research and go back for photos, so please don't expect a publishable account quite yet. This is essentially my note pad.
The first spider I came across was crazy looking to me, perhaps normal to southerners. It was a black and white spider that made a normal cobweb-style web, creating the rays outward from the center, then doing laps around the web to make a spiral connecting the spokes. The crazy thing about the spider was that it looked like it was carrying a huge trunk on its back. The legs were all attached to a normal spider body, fairly small, about the size of a mustard seed. But then it had a conical backpack with six spikes and dots on the top of the cone. This cone was about five times larger than the spider's body. I watched the first two spin their webs, the web coming out of the bottom of the cone, for several minutes, then moved on. Over the course of the roughly two miles, I must have seen thirty or forty of these spiders. Many of them were strung across the trail, and many more were along the sides of the trail. From my research, it appears that this spider is an orb-weaver called Gasteracantha, but possibly a Micrathena Gracilis. I plan to snap a few pictures of them to add to this account and help in identification.
The next spider I noticed was very clearly a banana spider, or more properly a golden orb spider, Nephila clavipes. I nearly rode my bike through one (about face high) in Florida a couple of years ago. It nearly scared the hell right out of me because the things are so big, but I've read several accounts that they are not venomous and even if they do bite you, it's not a big deal. I only had to move one of their webs, although I saw three of them along the way. They have a great pattern on their back in yellow and black. And they're big enough, you can appreciate the geometry and beauty without getting within a couple of inches and squinting.
As I approached the end of the trail, I saw another spider that I originally thought was another banana spider, but upon closer observation, I realized it was not. This one had a zig-zag pattern on its web that I had never seen with banana spiders. It also had different markings on its back, but was nearly the same size as the banana spiders. That is, huge. I believe I've identified it as Argiope Aurantia, but I'll have to go back and compare pictures and markings to be sure.
I was disappointed that I couldn't find any information about the spiders in the museum's gift shop. I found quite a few books on insects, several on trees, and quite a few other things, but there were no books at all on spiders. I was interested in the trees and the birds, but I certainly saw more spiders than anything else on the hike and I imagine that others do too. I hope this information is interesting and helpful to others taking the hike.