Too small for a banana spider.  I ran into one, face first, strung across my fence post and like to s*&t.  I sprayed it with RAID and ot took three days for it to succumb to the desired effects.

The spider you have is very common around here.  I have no idea what it might be but the two I had been watching in my yard packed up and moved their entire web one night, same night.  Yours might be gone by now.  They're harmless but scary as hell if you run into them when mowing the yard.

I had several of these in my back yard when I lived in Alabama.  If you want to see a good picture of mine it is on webshots. 
http://tinyurl.com/5htvcs

Notice mine has only 7 legs as well.

Cheers

Thank you to all who responded to the spider question...it is a banana spider! Y'all rock....I swear if there's an egg sac against the corner of my house when I get back to town, my spider friend is going to be relocated - again, and she will not be the mother of any spider babies.

And to the poster on the Morning News page who said there was no thing as a "brown widow"...dig on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_geometricus

The spider is a female golden silk spider. It's found in the southeastern US among other tropical areas. It is usually found near the coast especially in areas close to wetlands. The spider will not bite unless provoked, but the bite is not poisonous.

   This is a Golden Silk Spider, or Nephila. They get really big (2 1/2"), and when they are full-grown, the silk in their web is actually a beautiful golden color. Their silk is said to be the strongest natural fiber on Earth, and some people in the Caribbean actually make fishing nets out of it. The good part for us is that the silk is also strong enough to hold Palmetto Bugs, which the Golden Silk Spider eats.

I think that they call this a Banana Spider

Looks to me like that is a banana spider.  They won't hurt you, but they are huge and scary

Golden silk spider (Nephila clavipes). Quite common, and though the female (pictured) is fairly large and scary looking, quite harmless!

Looks like the shadow of a banana spider. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephila_clavipes There all over my parents backyard in "unincorporated" Dorchester County.