Supermoon Viewing Party

Tonight and tomorrow night, the sky holds a special treat for those who gaze east at sunset. November hosts a supermoon. My friend Georgia, who visited my backyard garden last night, chatting and dining around the fire pit, reciprocated this evening with an invitation to watch the supermoon rise. 


Georgia has a new contemporary home just down the street from me. I had the joy and privilege of serving as her realtor on that purchase. Her beautiful house has a loft upstairs that is perfectly situated with large windows that offer an eastern view. 


This gracious friend prepared a wonderful chopped veggie salad and had other suitable plant based snacks on hand. Georgia, Greg and I carried plates of food up to the impromptu observation deck, ready to be dazzled by the moon, which tonight was just shy of full. 

According to NASA, the moon’s orbit around the Earth is slightly elliptical, so sometimes the moon is closer and sometimes it’s farther away. When the moon is full as it makes its closest pass to Earth, it is known as a supermoon. At perigree—the point at which the moon is closest to Earth—the moon can be as much as 14 percent closer to Earth than at apogee, when the moon is farthest from our planet. The full moon appears that much larger in diameter and 30 percent brighter. 

The biggest and brightest supermoon for observers in the United States will be on Monday morning just before dawn.


Because our forecast for today and tomorrow was partly cloudy, we opted to view the supermoon tonight, while we had relatively clear skies. There was a low lying front to the east, however, from our darkened loft we watched appreciatively as the amber colored moon broke free from the haze and climbed into the evening sky. 

In my lifetime, I’ve watched many moonrises. It never gets old. Perhaps because my full name, Cynthia, means “moon”, I have always felt an affinity toward the earth’s beautiful natural satellite. This supermoon is the closest one we have had, since 1948. There won’t be another moon that sails this close to the earth until 2034. My phone’s camera couldn’t capture how gorgeous the moon was…but my eyes took it all in and saved it as a memory. 

I appreciate my friend and my neighbor, Georgia, for inviting me to share in this once in a lifetime event, from the comfort of her home. I am grateful, too, for the colorful and delicious salad. I’ll be making this tasty meal at home. 

Supermoons and superfriends…they inspire me to keep looking up. 

Day 309: The Dining Car at the Gryphon

Dining Car exterior

Today’s first was a yummy treat. And an interesting experience when I can have two firsts in the same restaurant space, under two different names! Today I met my friend Georgia at the newly opened The Dining Car at the Gryphon, located downtown at 1027 S Main, in…..you guessed it….the Gryphon building! Earlier in the year, I had lunch for the first time at The Fork, located in the same space. This is a new venture, with new owners and management.

The Dining Car at the Gryphon, henceforth referred to simply as The Dining Car, opened in October. It has a railroad theme with train memorabilia used as décor. According to Joplin Globe reporter Wally Kennedy, railroad cars used to pull up to the building on a spur on the north side, when the Inter-State Grocer Company occupied the space. It’s an appropriate theme, yet it is not overdone. The atmosphere was comfortable, cozy and clean, and there were many occupied tables while we were there during lunch time.

The Dining Car is managed by Stacy Gamble, former manager of Jim Bob’s, which was destroyed by the tornado in 2011 and then by a fire, after it reopened in its new location. Stacy brings years of experience in the food industry to this new establishment.

The restaurant features American food including hamburgers, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, prime rib, fish, steaks and chicken. There are lunch and dinner menus and one just for kids. Georgia and I browsed the lunch menu and both selected the same item, the Canyon Creek Pass Chicken. This was a pan roasted chicken breast, on a base of mashed potatoes and a large fried portabella mushroom, topped with chopped avocado, feta cheese, and a special gravy type sauce. It was delicious, with a home cooked, satisfying flavor and it was just the right portion for lunch.

We enjoyed our leisurely lunch. Georgia and I have been friends for a long time. It is always good to catch up with each other’s journeys and share the recent aha’s we’ve had about life. She is one of those friends that I can not see for a while, and then when we meet, we instantly pick up where we left off in our last conversation. We share beliefs about life and we are both learning so much about who we are and what our roles are in the world. I appreciate her insights and that we can journey together, as traveling companions. And, The Dining Car just might become our new place to meet for lunch or dinner. There are so many tempting meals to experience on the menu!

Dining Car