KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - As the government shutdown enters Day 2, it continues to cause headaches for many people, including a group of Missouri and Kansas veterans flying to Washington to visit the nation's closed war monuments.
KSHB-TV reports that the nonprofit Heartland Honor Flight organized the trip, which was supposed to first start at the closed National World War II Memorial. The group was hopeful it would get inside after a Mississippi veterans group did Tuesday.
"It's been 70 years, but these men do have some experience getting though barricades, blockades, beaches, continents, oceans and taking care of things," said Mark Martin, a volunteer with Heartland Honor Flight on his eleventh trip to Washington with the group.
Several federally operated Missouri attractions also were closed. Thirteen people are on furlough at the George Washington Carver National Monument, a national park near the southwest Missouri town of Diamond that is the birthplace of the black scientist who taught people to how to make peanut butter and rotate crops.
"Obviously, that takes a toll on the workers and their families and any financial obligations they have," site superintendent Jim Heaney told The Joplin Globe. "But we're also seeing a beloved, very American institution already being chipped away at by budget cuts now shut down."
In the northwest part of the state, cameras aren't snapping pictures of snow geese headed to the marshes at the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge. The St. Joseph News-Press reads that a sign reads "Closed due to lapse in appropriations."
The shutdown comes at an unfortunate time for the refuge, with some fall waterfowl seasons approaching as soon as Friday. Hunters still will flock to the region with money to spend in area hotels, restaurants and bars as they hunt with the outfitters that surround the refuge.
However, tourists won't have the benefit of Squaw Creek and its auto route that provides up-close views of migrating ducks and geese.