MONROE, Mich. — The sun was out, the air was still, and the temperature hovered around 45 degrees.
Mother Nature couldn’t have delivered a more welcome gift to an already winter-weary region the day after Christmas.
The pleasant weather lured many outdoors and to places like River Raisin National Battlefield Park — a casualty of a government shutdown that entered its sixth day Thursday as the holiday season winds down.
“It’s kind of surreal,” Paula McIntyre, a communications consultant from Cedar, Mich., said of the deadlock at the nation’s capital and its impact on — of all things — national parks.
The shutdown didn’t prevent Ms. McIntyre from walking the historic battlefield with her family. But the actions of lawmakers and President Trump hung in the chilly air — as did signs tacked to the visitor center explaining its closure.
“Because of a lapse in federal appropriations, this National Park Facility is closed for the safety of visitors and park resources,” it read.
Marsha Laskey, 60, of Monroe, snapped a picture of the notice with her phone.
“Unfortunately, we can’t get a lot of the information because it’s not open,” she said of the visitor center. “There’s a cool video inside … but you can’t see any of it.”
It was a relatively minor inconvenience for Ms. Laskey, her son, and his fiancee, who strolled the grounds with a small, sweater-wearing mutt named Mickey. Plaques around the park describe the battles fought there…
