Mike Argento: The government shutdown is no honeymoon

Kurt Gordon and Laura Baldwin went to high school together. They were in the same class at Dallastown Area High School, but they really didn’t know each another. They would know each other by sight, in a kind of hey-that-person-is-in-my-class way, but they didn’t travel in the same circles.

It was only after they both came home after going away for college that they met. A friend introduced them, they hit it off, and not long after, on Sept. 28, they got married. It wasn’t one of those years-in-the-planning weddings. The planning started in May, booking the hall, arranging the catering and all of that.

At the same time, they booked their honeymoon trip. They are both kind of outdoorsy and enjoy hiking and camping, and neither one of them had ever been to the Pacific Northwest – so they decided to take their first trip as man and wife to Mount Rainier, one of the most beautiful and scenic spots in the Northwest, if not the entire country. They also planned a side trip to Portland to visit a friend.

That was on Monday, Sept. 30. Their friend is a ranger at a national park, and he was staying up late Monday to watch the news and figure out whether he had to go to work Tuesday. The deadline for the government shutdown was midnight, and if the government shut down, he would have the day off, or be out of work, depending on your perspective. The odds were good in favor of a shutdown, as House Republicans, controlled by the Tea Party, seemed to want it.

Their friend

wasn’t sure what it meant for them. He told them he figured they’d be able to visit the park and get on the mountain but that the shops and visitor center would be closed. He thought they’d still have access to the park because, well, it’s a park, open land, and closing open land is kind of a strange concept.

They arrived in Seattle that Thursday afternoon. They asked the people at the hotel’s front desk whether they’d be able to go to Mount Rainier. Hotel staffers told them that people live inside the park and they couldn’t believe it would be closed. Some things would be closed, they said, but they believed the gate would be open and Kurt and Laura would be able to go in and take a day hike.

The first sign of trouble came about four or five miles from the park entrance. They passed a small restaurant, a diner, that had a sign out front that said, “Mount Rainier closed. Thanks federal government.”

It seemed unlikely that an entire mountain could be closed, so they drove on.

And when they arrived at the park’s gate, it was closed. A sign on the gate said, “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.”

They drove around on some of the roads that skirted the park and looked for ways in. They were able to get in and walk around a bit, but they couldn’t get to any of the scenic overlooks, the places that afford breathtaking views of the mountain and the valley below. It was cloudy that day anyway, and any views would be obscured by clouds, Kurt said.

On that Friday, they asked at the hotel desk whether there was any way to get a good view of the mountain. One person at the desk told them about a road that led to an overlook that bordered the park. They were able to find it and hiked up to the overlook.

It was sunny and clear that day, and they had a good view. And, at the overlook, they met a local, a man who had been scouting a hunting spot by the mountain.

The man was kind of surprised that they were able to find the overlook. Not everybody knew about it, he told them. The man then shared his knowledge, told them all about the different river valleys, how they were formed by glaciers eons ago. He told them that the lake up the road got its color from pulverized volcanic rock. He told them about the wildlife in the area. In short, he provided just about as much information about the mountain as a park ranger could.

So it kind of worked out.

It was unfortunate, Kurt said, but they still had a good time. And he and Laura realize that their honeymoon may have been affected, but they still got to see some of the mountain. They can’t complain, Kurt said, especially when the shutdown was so hard on the people who depend on it to make a living. Not just park rangers. The town they stayed in depends on tourism. They may have missed out on some of what the park had to offer, but it’s not that big of a deal when you put it into perspective, they said.

“We still got to do a lot,” Kurt said.

They returned home, to their jobs – Kurt works in IT for WellSpan and Laura is a teacher at a Montessori school – and to married life. And they started thinking about their next trip.

Laura said, “We’re definitely planning a trip back. There’s a lot more we could have done. And we’d like to get into the park.”
By then, the federal government will be back in business.

You can only hope.

Mike Argento’s column appears Mondays and Fridays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints. Reach him at mike@ydr.com or 771-2046. Read more Argento columns at www.ydr.com/mike. Or follow him on Twitter at @FnMikeArgento.