By now many of you know I slipped out of town last week. Those of you who read the column in this space and took notice of the photo accompanying the article figured it out right away. Southeast Missourian reporter Mark Bliss filled this spot last week. The photo of a younger, and better-looking guy, was a dead giveaway.

The family went to one of our regular vacation spots, the Redneck Riviera, specifically, Destin.

It's been about three years since we vacationed there and as you might expect it has changed a lot. Hurricanes along the gulf coast do not appear to have stopped anyone from building or moving there. And doing so in a hurry, I might add.

It occurred to me as we were driving south and being passed by a lot of cars, that everyone seemed to think that they were trying to be the first to Florida. I didn't have the heart to tell them there are several million folks already sitting around in the sunshine.

We enjoyed beautiful weather the entire week. It's not unusual to have an afternoon shower pop up, but we were only threatened once when my stepson Adam, Terry Luce and I were on the golf course. We got hit by a few drops of rain, but never thought about breaking out the rain gear.

This was also an occasion to prove that we live in a small world. Since a lot of us head to the Redneck Riviera it was not surprising to run into a familiar face. What was interesting was how we did meet a friend from home.

One afternoon on the beach my wife and I strolled down about half a mile to get a closer look at the dredging operation going on. Florida is constantly battling the effects of tidal erosion to its beaches. The Sunshine State temporarily wins the battle is to dig up sand from a hundred yards or so off shore and pipe it back to the beach where it is spread out with various earth-moving equipment.

As we were walking back my wife looked over on the beach and said, "There's Bill Palmer."

Sure enough there was a fellow all stretched out lying on his stomach, soaking up all the rays he could and reading a book. However, we were exactly sure that was Bill. We've all been there. See someone you think you know, but it turns out not to be that person.

The last time this happened to us we walked past a woman I just knew was Susan Stoner. I even blurted out something like, "Hey, how are you doing?" Obviously, it wasn't Susan and my wife had a great laugh convinced that the woman kept an eye on me worried some sort of stalker was after her.

Anyway, we looked this guy over pretty close and couldn't see the woman sitting next to him plainly from where we stood so we also were not sure that was Kathy. We stared as long as was appropriate -- if such a thing exists -- and moved on.

Later that night we took the kids shopping to the outlet mall. My wife blurted out, "It was Bill Palmer."

Bill and his daughter, Alayna, came walking up. It was indeed Bill and Kathy we had seen on the beach that afternoon. It sounded as if the Palmers were having a fun time as well, pretty much bike riding all over the Panhandle.

The second night there we decided to eat at a favorite restaurant of my wife's, Joe's Crab Shack.

We were seated and greeted by an energetic young man. A co-worker of his came over and informed us he was relatively new to the job and still in training. She encouraged us to ask him anything.

About the third time he came back to the table our waiter asked where we were from.

"Oh, a little town in southeast Missouri you've probably never heard of, " I replied. Figuring that if he had heard of our little city it was only because of our Grammy winner.

"No way," he blurts out. "My aunt lives there."

"Do you know Ralph and Sue Hemann?" he asked.

"She's my aunt," he said.

Turns out Mac Criner's father and Sue are brother and sister. Mac had moved to Florida recently and had just taken a job with the restaurant.

When he was younger Mac would come to Kennett in the summer. He remembered riding his bike all over town with his cousins and their friends. A small world indeed.

Mac is holding down two jobs as he gets settled in his new home. He also works for a coffee shop out on the beach. We stopped in there as we were leaving so Terry could get his mother some of their famous coffee beans, but Mac wasn't' working that morning.

I think it's safe to say a fun time was had by all, although it was good to get back home.

Funny, it didn't seem like folks were driving as fast going north as they were going south. Hard to imagine, huh?

Bud Hunt is the publisher of the Daily Dunklin Democrat.