I suffer from two severe genetic deficiencies.

First, I carry the gene for the Dutch Disease. The symptoms are pink, freckly skin that swings violently from bright red to pasty white and back and forth again and again and again. The closest I’ve ever come to a tan is when several freckles merge together into a larger brown spot.

I also carry the deYong gene which means I have known since childhood that I was destined to retain very few hairs on my head.

The combination of these two conditions means that I have paid for my dermatologist’s boat, substantial portions of his children’s college tuitions, and probably a bit of his alimony.

Doctor Bob constantly tells me not to go outside without a chapeau sitting jauntily atop my pate. (In reality, he said, “Don’t go outside without a cap, you dumb shit,” but it sounds far more sophisticated the way I worded it.)

I use this as an excuse to buy caps. Everywhere we go on our travels, I buy caps. So many caps that we have to send them home along the way because they won’t fit in our suitcases.

ONE ADDED NOTE: Jamie and I are convinced that I bought far more caps than this, and we both swear we’ve seen them since we got home, but they’ve apparently been stashed in some mystery location.

Back in my ad agency days, I required creative teams to design a T-shirt as part of every ad campaign. I always said that it couldn’t be an effective campaign unless its message could be distilled down to something simple enough to be communicated on a T-shirt.

My business partner said I only did it to get free T-shirts.

We may have both been right.

But all these years later I still love a nice, simple T-shirt with a bold graphic or an interesting message. And that explains why I buy so many of them when we’re traveling. So many that we need to box them up and ship them home along the way.

I didn’t have any idea how many T-shirts I had picked up on this trip until we got home and I started pulling them out of boxes we’d sent home along the way.

Now that we’re home, we need to get back in a Texas kind of mood. And this song can only help.

I mentioned before how friendly Texans are. They’re warm and welcoming to everyone. Well, let me amend that slightly. They’re warm and welcoming to everyone who doesn’t piss ‘em off.

When we moved to Texas the locals kept asking us the same question over and over and over again. Soon as they found out where we were from they’d narrow their eyes like Clint Eastwood, give us hard looks, and say, “You don’t plan on bringin’ those California ways down here, do you?”

Here’s Ray Wylie Hubbard, The Godfather of Texas Music, singing the song that ought to be the Texas National Anthem. Click on it and give it a listen. It’s a cool damn song with a lot of Texas attitude.

We went to see Ray Wylie a couple years ago and walked away saying it was the best live show either of us had ever seen. Of course, he ended the show with a raucous version of “Screw You, We’re from Texas” and the whole audience joined in to sing the chorus at the top of their lungs.

If St Augustine is correct, this has been our best trip ever because we’ve made so many friends in this beautiful little valley.

We truly appreciate your friendship, your generosity, and your willingness to adopt a couple foreigners who don’t understand footy, who don’t eat Vegemite, and whose understanding of your language is often laughably inadequate.

Mark and Marlo (above). Our newest friends. They own Hive, the coffee shop down on the corner.

Doctors John and Margaret. Oh, how we’ll miss our coffees and conversations.

Mark and Mandy. The Doctors’ daughter and her husband. Very smart, very funny people and we love spending time with them.

Scottie. Two doors down. He is so enamoured with Jamie that he has hatched a scheme to do away with me in order to have her for himself.

The entire Mustard clan. They love Jamie and put up with me (just like lots of other people around the world).

John and his little dog Angus. Our next door neighbors. He was recently honored by the Australian government for his lifetime of good works. Let’s make it clear — it was John who was honored, not Angus.

Grant and Elizabeth. She’s South Australia’s most elegant woman. And he’s even funnier every time we get together. (I particularly like the “Meat Tray Raffle” sign over Grant’s shoulder.)

Ray and Polly (above). Our first landlords in the Barossa. And our first friends in South Australia.

Paul. Jack of all trades, and contrary to the old saying, master of all.

Debbie. The woman who comes to America to chase tornados.

Ken and Sue (above). Our former landlords. Our first friends in the Barossa. They do far too much for us and we appreciate it.

The gang at Hive. Mark and Marlo (mentioned and shown above) plus Eloise and Bobby King.

The boys at Bean Addiction. Damien, St John, and Jordon (he’s the one above who gave us a beautiful bottle of South Australian whiskey as a going away gift)

The gang at Fleur Social. Sarah and Ryan (she’s Aussie, but he’s one of those nice Canadian fellows)

The gang at Mitre 10. Carolyn, Helen, Sam and the rest.

The gang at Crowie’s. Adrian, Vaughan, and Karen.

The gang at Red Door. Lisa, Poppy, Patti and everyone else.

The gang at Darlings. Wendy, Amy, Alex and the rest.

The gang at Terry White’s. Kamal, Ella, Ranae, Sharon, Megan, Jane and epecially Vanessa who deserves a special call-out for introducing Jamie to the wildlife rescue sanctuary.

The gang at Office National. We’d never be able to survive here for this many months without Jimmy, Keegan, and Liz.

There really are just too many to call out individually. Our apologies to anyone we accidentally omitted.

See all of you as soon as we can schedule another trip back to the Barossa.

Maybe we’re finding Sydney depressing just because we’re so sad about leaving this wonderful country. But it’s more likely that we’re feeling down because the city is so eerily empty. Just look at this photo of the harbor at the Circular Quay next to the Opera House. It’s normally buzzing with boats of every size and shape. But today it’s empty. Same with the usually crowded sidewalks.

You might not believe this, but we do not think Australia is perfect. This photo of a freeway off-ramp just south of Sydney illustrates its major flaw — it’s too damn Americanized.

We spent the night in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales on the way to Sydney. There’s really no story here. I only mention it because I’ve always wanted to do the “Hubba hubba, Wagga Wagga” headline.

Last night I read a short biography of Clint Eastwood. High Plains Drifter was one of the first films he directed. Aussies pronounced the word “hay” the same way Americans pronounce the word “high.” So I couldn’t help but think of Clint today when we drove across the Hay Plain on our way from Angaston to Sydney.

America is big and has appropriately big monuments — the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Gateway Arch, Mount Rushmore, the list goes on and on. But Australia’s a small country with a much shorter history so it makes sense that it has a much shorter list of smaller monuments.

But it’s hard to believe just how short the list is.

You have the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, and…uhhhhh…the Dog on the Tuckerbox in Gundagai.

No, seriously. The Dog on the Tuckerbox is a famous Australian monument. We drove miles out of our way just to see it.

In case you’re wondering why one of Australia’s most famous monuments features a dog sitting on a box of food, here’s the story: It was inspired by a poem titled Bullocky Bill that celebrates Australia’s settlers. It tells the story of a loyal dog that continued to guard his owner’s tuckerbox long after the pioneer had died.

It’s all part of the charm of the Land Down Under.

ONE ADDED NOTE: I’ve been reminded that Americans probablly have no idea what a tuckerbox is. Tucker means food, something to be tucked away in the stomach. So a tuckerbox is a place to store food, a lunchbox of sorts.

Australia is a land of extremes. It can flip from years of drought to massive flooding almost overnight.

This sign post on the “other” side of the Murray River shows the highest flood levels in recorded history. The base of the sign probably sits 20 feet above the normal level of the river.

1956 must have been a crazy year, huh?