Your description helped me realize these are the spiders I was constantly dodging on trails outside of Puerto Vallarta last year! The webs were usually over my head on the trails, but I imagine that's only because of trail usage.
Those might have been banana spiders / golden orb weavers, which are native to the southeast US down to northern South America. They have the same web-building habit as described.
As someone from near Kentucky, I hate Banana spiders. They aren’t mean, but they are terrifying if you’re scared of spiders and unlike the spiders in the OP they will bite.
