I didn't really think of snakes being friendly like that. I guess I should have as sometimes you'll see someone handling a snake and they seem pretty docile. Just depends I guess. It does sound like he was a really cool pet. I guess since it was a baby when you got him he was used to humans.
I had never heard of mosquito hawks (crane fly): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crane_fly I've seen them around on occasion and I thought they were an actual mosquito. They don't even bite.
The strangest spider I have ever seen here is a black and yellow argiope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argiope_aurantia It has a pattern on its web that almost looks like writing. One made a web in the front yard once, but it was only around for a short time.
I did once find a large brown spider in the house and I caught it and put it outside. I still don't know what kind of spider that was. Probably around the size of the argiope.
That and the argiope are the only ones that have ever stood out to me here. All the other spiders I put outside too, but those are ordinary spiders I see all the time. They eat others bugs, so they are nice to have around outside.
I'm just not used to other kinds of snakes here since we have so few around, other than the black snakes around. Now I can look online more easily to try and figure out if something is likely harmless or not. If you describe the pattern, you can probably pretty easily find what something is.