With cheers, hugs, and applause, friends and family of Chris O'Bryan waved goodbye to a steep-climbing Delta flight soaring into the clear cold sky at Tri-City Airport this morning. The temperature had just warmed out of overnight teens. On board was Bristol Bird Club's 16-year-old herpetologist and aspiring field biologist, on another leg of his amazing journey to a promising future. Six hours later Chris had negotiated a flight change at Atlanta and swept northward back to Washington D.C. where he met with a staff member of the Smithsonian. Tonight they go to dinner and talk more tropical biology. O'Bryan had responded to the museum's invitation to join them on a nine-day Christmas adventure of the Amazon to study some of the most biologically diverse wildlife on Earth. Ed Smith, who works as a museum specialist at the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park, Amazonia Department, met Chris' flight in Washington. Smith is an expert on invertebrate zoology and is knowledgeable of tropical botany and is an experienced birder. Smith and O'Bryan spent a day together this past May on a field trip together to a mountain ridge near Fredrick, MD where they observed and captured Timber Rattlesnakes which were emerging from their winter den. O'Bryan spent a portion of the day at the National Zoo snake room where he got a close look at the operations. He later spent a day at the U.S. National Museum. He was presented a staff shirt and made an unofficial member. Chris will spend Friday of this week helping in the herp room and then board a flight with the staff, heading to Miami and then on to Lima, Peru. The Amazon area they will visit has recorded more species of primates than anywhere in the New World. Over the course of the journey, they may spot several varieties of monkeys, thousands of colorful birds, pink and gray dolphins, and an abundance of other exotic wildlife in an ever-changing vista of lush tropical wilderness. Chris expects to catch his first piranha or sees a Harpy Eagle flying through the trees. He will explore the world's largest and most diverse wilderness aboard La Amatista, a classic 48-riverboat. Chris checked his snakerake with his luggage early this morning. Armed with all kinds of digital equipment from an electronic compass to digital camera, he is poised. He is carrying his 35 mm camera, packed away 15 rolls of films. In addition he has tons of log books, field notebooks and everything else you can imagine. Before boarding the flight this morning, a science teacher at Sullivan Middle School who had once worked at Steele Creek Park, came over to wish him well. "The first thing I want you to do when you get back is to come straight to my classroom and give us a talk on the Amazon," she said. Not only is Chris on his first major flight but he went the distance alone today. The Smithsonian team has kept him covered up with shipments of books on the wildlife and natural history of the Amazon. He has been sent packets of maps and his itinerary. This is no small effort for a 10th grader ! This is no small effort for parents. His mother cried as the plane left and we shared a hug of assurance. "We had to do this for Chris," his mother said of the family of four sons not being together at Christmas for the first time. "He is an amazing person who rises to this kind of challenge and blossoms with each next challenge and opportunity. It is hard," she said. Out of Miami, Chris' flight will take him across the Caribbean, over Central America and along the high Andese Mountains of northern Peru. He will see volcanoes and rainforest and habitat most of us can't imagine. In February he will be scheduled to give a seminar at the East Tennessee State University Department of Biology. His topic will be "A Basking Behavior Study of Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtle (Apalone s. spinifera) In Steele Creek Park, Bristol, Sullivan County, Tennessee." ETSU funded his research with a 2004 Howard Hughes Student Research Scholarship. Dr. Tom Laughlin has been the faculty advisor for the study. Printing of his research report is being funded by a grant from the Friends of Steele Creek Nature Center and Park who provided research money for some of the field work. In early spring, Chris will have a poster of his project presented at a Southern Appalachian science conference where he will appear with the poster to discuss his research with conference attendees. Chris works as a naturalist on the staff of the Steele Creek Park Nature Center. And, yes, we miss him on our Christmas Bird Counts which he has faithfully participated in for several years. Merry Christmas....... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN