Wet, Wild ... Wisconsin?

The lobby of the Kalahari Waterpark in the Wisconsin Dells at check-in time on a recent Saturday afternoon was equal parts Marx Brothers anarchy, Andy Hardy freckles and "Dude, Where's My Car?" goofiness. Just as the line to the front desk began moving, five revelers barely into their teens hijacked an empty luggage rack, and with one pushing and four aboard, raced, shrieking, around the lobby, which seemed roughly the size of a par-three nine-hole golf course.

I quickly cruised the lobby in search of my friend Julia, a fine-arts administrator who did not want her last name used because she was embarrassed even to be seen in the Dells. Not finding her, I went back outside and ran into a traffic jam. The gridlock consisted mostly of two types of vehicles trying to get near this hostelry, which has a 125,000-square-foot indoor water park, the largest in the country. On the one hand were the monster-size recreational vehicles, which disgorged the incoming families. Going up against them were teenagers revving the engines of a score of pizza-delivery cars, lined up like impatient taxi drivers at the airport as they waited to drop off their wares and rush back for more.

No wonder the din of bleating horns: the oceans of Kalahari water are an apt symbol of the Wisconsin Dells, which over the last 15 years has become the indoor hydropark capital of the world. Now, with 18 indoor water parks, the Dells attracts 2.5 million people annually, more than a million of them in what used to be the off-season at this summer vacation spot. Tourist spending during the off-peak months, September to April, has increased 269 percent, to $329 million in 2002 from $88.4 million in 1993, according to the Wisconsin Dells Visitor and Convention Bureau.

"It's Las Vegas for kids," my friend Richard Mammen, a 54-year-old urban policy consultant, said approvingly one week after he drove from Minneapolis with his 9-year-old son, Jack, to go on giant flume rides. "I wanted to teach Jack about taking risks, and of course I ended up having to be the adult going down the big slide.

"I was very impressed by how many opportunities there were at the arcade downtown to take quarters from children," he said. "But it's a pretty good day for a 9-year old when he can shoot the rapids inside your hotel, followed by 18 holes of miniature golf, then gamble on Skee-Ball, and then top it off with French toast at midnight at Denny's. For a 9-year old, that's a big old night downtown."

I walked back inside the Kalahari, an African-themed hotel of 738 rooms and suites, suitable for families of any size. Greeting guests at the front door was a lion cub pacing a few steps each way in a glass cell. Seeing the small space and the many gawkers, one needn't be a PETA sympathizer to feel lousy. Past the lion, three of-age young men wearing jackets from Marquette University, the Jesuit college 116 miles southeast in Milwaukee, were carrying in a case each of Grain Belt beer. Despite many admonitions in hotel brochures saying "swimsuit cover-up required," chunky boys in unfortunately sized Speedos walked past high school girls in microdot bikinis.

"Psssst, over here," my friend Julia said from a few yards away. Like a hotel detective, she had been eyeing the hotel's controlled maelstrom behind yesterday's newspaper for 45 minutes. "I told you we should have rented kids," she said.

She had driven 188 miles from Chicago, and I had come 230 miles from Minneapolis to meet here, during the bottom of our endless Midwest winters for a weekend in the Dells, a 15-mile stretch along the Wisconsin River that the RoadsideAmerica.com travel guide describes as a "cheese-dense strip of motels, tourist traps, and singular attractions."

Julia refused to suspend her disbelief the week before on the phone when I tried to appeal to her higher sensibilities by pointing out the Pirandelloesque absurdity of such a trip. "What are you, a few French fries short of a Happy Meal?" she snapped. I finally talked her into coming by promising that we could visit the Circus World Museum in nearby Baraboo, Wis., which has an unparalleled collection of clown-related paraphernalia.

A former practitioner, she had once dreamed of going to clown college. It was a Faustian bargain; I loathed clowns as much as Jeff Daniels hated spiders in "Arachnaphobia," but I was secretly looking forward to a ride on the world's only indoor surfing machine.

The Dells first became popular as a tourist destination in the 1950's. And although these days some visitors may be attracted to the Kalahari's Master Blaster, an almost 200-yard-tall water roller-coaster, others are as passionate to see a century-old clown suit, take a free tour of a cheese factory and be rewarded with their own fresh curds, or, in summer, race around what may be the world's largest go-kart complex.

For adults not tuned to their inner child, there is also a 15-screen first-run movie theater attached to the hotel, and the Ho-Chunk Indian casino is just a few miles away. At some hotels, pools open at 7 a.m. and drinks are served only a few hours later.

We had made last-second reservations for a Saturday-night stay, and got the last accommodations available.

Our room, with two double beds and a two-person pull-out couch, smelling of smoke, cost $279 plus tax. The in-room movies, strictly PG fare, included winners like "Sideways" and "Anchorman," and also featured the "Pool Channel," where parents could monitor the waterpark from different viewpoints.

"Do you mind if I go try the Master Blaster or FlowRider?" I asked Julia.

"Do you mind if I wear a T-shirt that says 'I'm With Stupid'?" she responded. "You go ahead," she added, pushing the buttons to watch Alexander Payne's "Sideways," a film about a would-be-serious middle-aged writer who can't let go of his childhood.

I went back to the lobby holding my knee-length swimsuit. After standing in line for five minutes to get the all-access bracelet for the swimming area (included with the room), I walked out of the locker room and ran into an air-sucking fist of humidity that felt like something from a Graham Greene novel. Regaining my breath, I looked about and saw what seemed like five football fields of water, with paths between the alternately violent or placid pools. There were snack stands, a hot tub and a swimming pool volleyball game.

And: the Master Blaster, a 570-foot uphill water roller coaster, the only one in the country; the FlowRider, featuring 50,000 gallons of water being shot upward in a 40-by-60-foot boxlike shape; the flume ride, carrying passengers inside what looks like Barney Rubble's car chassis; and, for the faint of heart, a 504-foot-long Family Raft Ride, which harks placidly back to Huck Finn, or at least the kiddie rides at Disneyland.

Climbing an unnamed slide a couple of hundred feet in the air, I went down on my stomach, curling into a fetal ball at the last second and splashing a half dozen people. "Nice shooting, Tex," said a 30ish man wearing a mesh Green Bay Packers bathing suit as his two children wiped the spray out of their eyes. "Excellent."

But I wanted more. I'd always loved annoying rock critic friends of mine by saying that the Beach Boys were inherently phony because only Dennis Wilson could surf. If I could be half successful on the FlowRider, I would love to be able to say: "They're so lame. I can surf better than all of the Beach Boys except Dennis."

I headed over to the box, where two jet-propelled 85-horsepower motors generate the thousands of gallons of spray per minute uphill as one tries to navigate down. Ignoring instruction, I took my surfboard (smaller than the ones used on beaches) and fell backward trying to get on. Sliding face first down the gush of water, I tried not to hear the laughter, and thought of the name of a new ride: the Shame Spiral.

I returned to the room defeated; Julia was laughing at "Sideways" and reading the half-dozen coupons for pizza delivery that had been placed on the television cabinet. "When are we going to see the clown museum?" she asked.

"Don't you see the Dells are about much more than clowns?" I shot back.

It was almost unthinkable a generation ago to perceive of the Wisconsin Dells as a place someone would consciously want to visit. For many Midwestern baby boomers, the memories of being shoehorned together on long family car trips to the Dells have only started to fade.

"The mere words 'Wisconsin Dells' always made me remember how much I hated family driving vacations," Mr. Mammen said. Another friend says that his relationship with his father never recovered from the time he spilled a triple-decker banana split in the car when he was 7, the temperature was 102, and the air-conditioning didn't work.

More than 8,000 rooms are available throughout the Dells. Besides the Kalahari, another big place to stay is the Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort. Cabins, set off from the Wilderness's main building, are 3,500 square feet on three levels, big enough for extended families to congregate and to escape one another's company. One such cabin, with a hot tub, a foosball table and a wet bar, goes for about $675 a night in winter. Five-bedroom cabins are $750 to $975 a night on winter and early spring weekends; $495 to $645 during the week.

Back at the Ivory Coast Lounge adjacent to the Kalahari's waterpark, two middle-aged couples from Madison were playing gin rummy and quaffing 11 a.m. bloody marys. Preferring to remain anonymous ("We don't want our boss to know we'll have a drink at 11 a.m."), the group's spokesman said: "We come here every year at winter, when it's less crowded. We bring everybody: the kids, Grandma and Grandpa. They swim. We play gin rummy, and everybody goes home happy."

"Circus World museum in Baraboo?" Julia asked. After an early dinner so we could get to Circus World and then begin our drives home, we got lost. We passed the Ho-Chunk casino several times. The parking lot was full every time we went by.

We finally got to Circus World 10 minutes before it closed at 6 p.m.. and the cashier, seemingly the only employee, waved us in without charge. There is a reason the museum is in the Dells, spread out over 51 acres and a score of buildings and big-tops. The five Ringling brothers founded a traveling troupe in 1882 under the moniker "Ringling Brothers' Classic and Concert Company," and they would spend winters in Baraboo, near their homes. Everything from the elephant barn to the wardrobe department still stands. In 1927, the company started spending winters in Sarasota, Fla.; the Baraboo location was named a National Historic Landmark in 1969.

Julia was off to see the collections while I went to the gift shop, and then drifted into the museum to see an astounding array of posters, from Tom Thumb to the Giraffe-Necked Woman to the lion tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams. There is a picture of George H.W. Bush tossing a straw hat into a circus ring in 1988, the year he ran successfully for president. It's a tradition that began when Woodrow Wilson threw his hat into just such a ring to announce that he was running for president.

The museum says it has the largest research center on circuses, with thousands of photos, the history of 2,000 troupes and biographical data on a half-million circus performers. And everywhere there were clowns on the wall: Emmett Kelly, Red Skelton, men on posters from 1910 who looked as tragic as Pavarotti in Pagliacci's makeup. Thank goodness we hadn't come in summer when the real ones come out for the tourists.

"We better go," I told Julia. "They're closing up."

"Oh no, stay as long as you want; I've just started my book," the cashier said, holding up a John Irving novel as thick as a phone directory.

"Are there more clown-related exhibits?" Julia asked.

"Oh, many," the cashier said, pointing the way as I trudged along behind, an atheist in this church.

"Pirandelloesque; think Pirandelloesque," were the last words I heard from Julia as she careered around the corner.

When You're Out of the Pool

The town of Wisconsin Dells is an hour's drive from Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis., and three hours from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Driving directions and more information are available from the Wisconsin Dells Visitor & Convention Bureau (800-223-3557; www.wisdells.com).

This time of year, weekend rates for a standard double (a pair of queen-size beds and a sleeper sofa) at the Kalahari Waterpark Resort Convention Center (1305 Kalahari Drive; 877-253-5466) start at $259 a night ($129 weekdays). Weekend rates for suites begin at $349 a night. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, standard rooms are $259 and suites are $369.

At the Wilderness Hotel & Golf Resort (511 East Adams Street; 800-867-9453), rooms with two queen beds and a sleeper sofa begin at $200 on Friday and Saturday nights, and $99 the rest of the week in the fall and winter. From mid-June to Labor Day, rooms start at $150 during the week and $269 on the weekend.

In the area's sea of gift shops, the very best (even if you loathe clowns) is at Circus World Museum (550 Water Street in nearby Baraboo; 866-693-1500). The museum is open year-round; adult admission in the fall and winter is $7, children ages 5 to 11 are charged $3.50. From May 21 to Labor Day, admission is $14.95 for adults and $7.95 for children.