Tomorrow I take a jaunt an hour east of Dallas to indulge my inner geek in one of the rarest examples of arachnid capability: a spider web covering more than 200 yards (600 feet, or 180 meters).  The complex is so vast that it covers many trees and shrubs, not to mention the ground, and creates a rather Hallowe’en visage for those willing to venture near the structure at Lake Tawakoni State Park.

Even The New York Times got into the excitement of this natural wonder:

Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists, and park visitors.

Sheets of web have encased several mature oak trees and are thick enough in places to block out the sun along a nature trail at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near this town about 50 miles east of Dallas.

But what should I expect?

The gossamer strands, slowly overtaking a lakefront peninsula, emit a fetid odor, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk. The web whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds.

That much I’d heard before.

More to the point, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, Allen Dean, joined a chorus of scientists now calling this a spectacular and unexpected event.

Mr. Dean and several other scientists said they had never seen a web of this size outside of the tropics, where the relatively few species of “social” spiders that build communal webs are most active.

Norman Horner, emeritus professor of biology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex., was one of a number of spider experts to whom a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist sent online photos of the web. “It is amazing, absolutely amazing,” said Dr. Horner, who at first thought it an e-mail hoax.

But what does it mean?  That question remains unanswered even after several weeks.  To wit:

The web may be a combined effort of social cobweb spiders. But their large communal webs generally take years to build, experts say, and this web was formed in just a few months.

Or it could be a striking example of what is known as ballooning, in which lightweight spiders throw out silk filaments to ride the air currents. Five years ago, in just that way, a mass dispersal of millions of tiny spiders covered 60 acres of clover field in British Columbia with thick webbing.

While both revulsion and intrigue beguile visitors and park employees alike, the science nerd within me has no question as to the appropriate response: I wanna see it!  I wanna photograph it!  I wanna stroll through its labyrinth as if I were a newborn child experiencing walking for the first time!

And so I shall do all those things and more.

I intend to be at the park when it opens tomorrow morning.  With camera and spare batteries in hand, I shall indulge every whim.

And don’t fret, poppets.  I’ll also amble around the area and enjoy what the nature refuge has to offer.  You can expect more than just photos of a massive spider web… although you should expect a great deal of focus on that.