Deep Creek Lake

It was a summer of cancellations for the Pocomoke River Cruises. Too many soggy days kept people away from the scenic boat rides. "If it's thundering and lightning, you really don't want to be on the water," said Rai Coiro, who runs the cruises with her husband in Snow Hill. "You really just can't enjoy the river." So it went this summer, from Maryland's foggy mountain resorts in the west to the rain-soaked beaches in the east. While some restaurants and tourist spots reported solid seasonal bookings, for many it was the summer that wasn't.

McHENRY - You won't see Harold Hupe on Deep Creek Lake in the summer, but winter is another story. A couple of times a week you can find him working his way around the lake, jigs and tip-ups in hand, looking to land the monster walleye and behemoth perch that the lake is known for. "Just because the lake's frozen doesn't mean you stop fishing," says Hupe, 48, of Lavale. "You get to explore a lot more water than you do when the ice is out." Ice fishing is not a big sport below the Mason-Dixon line.

McHENRY - One worm at a time, Johnny Marple built his business from a roadside stand to the bait shop that became the center of Garrett County's fishing universe. Where are they biting? Ask Johnny. Need to rent a rod and reel? Johnny has them. Nightcrawlers or minnows? Johnny knows. But when the ice breaks on Deep Creek Lake this spring and anglers go looking for answers, they'll have to look elsewhere. Johnny's Bait House is closed, and its owner gone fishing, retired after nearly 50 years of dispensing worms and wisdom.

McHENRY - For 14 summers, Sharon DeVore spent many a cherished morning sitting outside the family trailer with her tea, sleepily contemplating Deep Creek Lake stretched out in front of her. But this summer, DeVore's daily ritual has vanished like the dawn mist. The Frostburg nurse and her husband learned in January that Glen Acres mobile home park, their longtime summer base, was shutting down, leaving the couple without a place on the lake where they had watched their kids fish, frolic - and grow up. DeVore, 42, and her husband Roy, 48, a high school teacher, are among many families of modest means being squeezed off the waterfront in the remote Western Maryland resort that was once a retreat for Pittsburgh steelworkers' families.

Gentrification ruins resort in Western Md. Amid all the bad news The Sun published over the Memorial Day weekend, one of the most depressing articles reported the travesty committed on the Deep Creek Lake area ("Deep Creek Lake now requires deep pockets," May 26). What a shame this formerly beautiful, rustic, natural, mountain area is being covered by the same McMansions that are paving over our suburbs and farmland. Tearing down the original homes that had character and replacing them with generic, megabucks ticky-tacks such as "Million Dollar View" showcases the abominable waste of one of the most lovely places in the world.

If you're heading to Deep Creek Lake this holiday weekend with thoughts of buying a nice, tidy, inexpensive vacation home -- forget it. You've missed the boat. People may call Deep Creek Lake quaint and rustic. But in today's real estate market, you can also add the word expensive to this portion of Western Maryland that is rapidly becoming a sought-after resort area. "When I first went up here in 1985, I could have bought a house, a fixer-upper on the lake for $100,000 or $125,000," said Bill Taylor, who with his wife, Vicki, sells property for Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. at Deep Creek Lake.

McHENRY - A marina owner wants to launch a bigger, better tour boat, but some neighbors say the vessel should remain dry-docked. A would-be entrepreneur pitches the idea of a floating hot dog stand, and businesses along the shore cry foul. Jet Skis and other personal watercraft? Some love the thrill; others see them as noisy pests that have no place in the tranquil coves of Deep Creek Lake. At this Western Maryland getaway, most folks agree that the spring fishing's been good, and hopes are high for a lucrative summer tourist season.

McHENRY -- The view is remarkable. It stretches down over snow-covered slopes to Deep Creek Lake, now frozen solid. In the morning, Florence Colman and her husband, Tony, sit in bed drinking coffee and watch the sun come up over the mountains, spilling light onto the icy lake. "Every day the view is different," she says. Last winter the couple's weekend retreat was only a dream. (Their main house is in Gaithersburg.) For years the Colmans had come to Garrett County to vacation with their two sons, now grown.

Here it is, almost August, and suddenly that summer vacation you're not taking this year is slamming you with a severe case of deprivation. Or that vacation you took waaaay back in June feels like it happened last year. Getting away for a full week in August is out of the question. But a couple of days, well, that you could manage to squeeze in. But you need to really get away fast; you don't want to spend gobs of time just traveling to get someplace. Maryland is chock full of great bed-and-breakfast getaways.

Ice cream parlors and Sunday drives, wraparound porches, soda fountains and bicycle parades: The pleasures of small towns are by no means a thing of the past. Although urban dwellers caught in the rush of modern times may not have strolled down a Main Street lately, the best of small towns still evoke nostalgic feelings of seemingly less complicated times. With the Fourth of July just around the corner and the nation in the mood to celebrate, we visited four regional communities with plenty of individuality and small-town charm (not to mention museums, shopping and lovely sights)