Perhaps the Last Post on the State Government Shutdown

Recently I spoke with someone who was camping in a state park the day the government furloughed state workers and the parks closed down. He said they were told they had to leave and he asked about a refund as they had prepaid. This is something I had not thought about. If you paid with a credit card the park workers could see that your card was refunded but if you paid with cash you had to fill out forms and mail them in. That is my understanding anyway. Those taking an inexpensive family vacation and who had paid cash in advance would have just been out of luck. Some would probably have found it a financial hardship to scrounge up alternative arrangements at the last minute.

I asked the person who was telling me about this if they had returned to the park the next day when they reopened. The answer was no. They had been able to find another spot and just stayed there.

As one example this wouldn't seem to have much impact, but played out on a larger scale, especially with out of state tourists, who are likely to tell everyone they meet about what happened, it isn't going to help our tourism industry.