{"id":22521,"date":"2019-01-28T12:14:47","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T17:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=22521"},"modified":"2019-01-26T15:00:50","modified_gmt":"2019-01-26T20:00:50","slug":"jeris-jackpot-the-tarantula-awareness-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2019\/01\/28\/jeris-jackpot-the-tarantula-awareness-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeri’s Jackpot: The Tarantula Awareness Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Here it is, folks. The last festival of Jeri\u2019s Jackpot before we move on to bigger and better things. As promised, this week is all about the Tarantula Awareness Festival and the absolute weirdness that it is. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0I myself am not a big fan of spiders. I find them creepy and scary, and usually, you\u2019ll hear me scream in horror as I run away from them. I\u2019ve been known to even avoid a room all day if a spider I\u2019ve seen can\u2019t be found and relocated.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In Coarsegold, California, near Yosemite National Park, the festival launches off every year in October. The family-friendly event includes costume contests, spider holding, screaming contests, arachnid races and hairy leg contests. I\u2019ll pass on the arachnid holding, thanks. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The festival has been running for 21 years and is a big hit with locals and those from afar as well. The activities are free and there\u2019s even a tricycle contest for those over the age of 18. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The festival was created to celebrate the annual migration of local tarantulas that emerge in the fall to find a mate before hibernating for winter. It is used to educate people on the importance of tarantulas and teach the community that while they can be creepy, they are harmless to humans and vital to the ecosystem.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0People who own tarantulas bring them to the festival for races, in which the spiders are placed in a dryer tube and the first one to make it to the end wins their owner a $50 gift card, which is just one of the ways that people can celebrate and have fun at the event. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The costume contest is generalized and is not just about dressing like a spider. In addition to spider related activities, there are also fall themed festivities as well, such as pumpkin carving, baking contests and various other activities for people of all ages to participate in. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The festival combines fall, Halloween and spiders all in one. What more could you want?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Unlike several other festivals we\u2019ve taken a look at, it appears that this one truly is one of a kind. For that, I\u2019m kind of thankful. I really don\u2019t know if a traveling tarantula festival, or even more than one would be the kind of thing I\u2019d want to see.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Jeri Hensley<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Graphic Designer<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Here it is, folks. The last festival of Jeri\u2019s Jackpot before we move on to bigger and better things. As promised, this week is all about the Tarantula Awareness Festival and the absolute weirdness that it is. \u00a0 \u00a0I myself am not a big fan of spiders. I find them creepy and scary, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":22557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2109,3],"tags":[374,2751,2016,2765,2900,2899],"class_list":["post-22521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-california","tag-festivals","tag-jeri-hensley","tag-jeris-jackpot","tag-tarantula","tag-tarantula-awareness-festival"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/45159755512_154f475885_o-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5Rf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22560,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521\/revisions\/22560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}