Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou

We are in Charenton, in the heart of Acadiana (cajun country -- say Acadian fast), along the Bayou Teche on the tribal lands of the Chitimacha, who have a casino here (map).

The Cypress Bayou Casino actually has a full-hookup campground, which is a great deal at $10 per night if you have a (free) players club card. The 50 amp power came in handy to run our air conditioning -- it's still hot and sticky here -- and charge our batteries, which got a workout running the AC while we were at the ferry landing. We had an eerie feeling of déjà vu as we pulled in to the place; it took us a few moments to realize we had pulled in here three years ago to dump our tanks -- it must have been listed in one of our dump site directories.

The casino also has five restaurants. The very pricey steakhouse was highly rated, according to the Internet, so we stopped in for dinner. We split one piece of prime rib between us, and, at 22 ounces, even split we could not finish it. It was tasty, though, and now we have leftovers.

Our drive yesterday along the eastern half of Cameron parish and into Vermillion parish revealed a bit more unrepaired damage than we had seen west of Cameron, but, still, recovery is happening, albeit slowly. As we moved further inland toward the Atchafalaya basin things began to again look normal.

Today we will continue east on US90 all the way to New Orleans.