To many readers, Caddie was the first and best American Girl.

That's why they seek out the northeast corner of Wisconsin, "the cradle of rivers.'' The big Wisconsin River starts there, as do the Wolf, Peshtigo and Menominee, three of the Upper Midwest's best-known whitewater rivers.

On the Wolf River, Bear Paw Outdoor Adventure Resort has been a whitewater hub since 1994, selling gear to expert wranglers and teaching novices how to handle the rapids, which froth and churn over knots of boulders dropped by the last glacier.

First, we loved the water slides, geysers and whimsical fiberglass figures at the Polynesian’s Water Factory.

Then, we loved the bigger slides, chutes, lily-pad walk and tubing river at Great Wolf’s Spirit Mountain. When the Wilderness opened Klondike Kavern, its second park, we loved its indoor-outdoor hot tub and the long tube slides there and at Treasure Island.

If it wasn't for the climate, Peter Pan would feel right at home in Madison, Wis.

It's the NeverNeverland of the Midwest, a town whose zany exuberance is appreciated by everyone but Republicans, whose outnumbered governor once called it "57 square miles surrounded by reality.''

Inhabited largely by college students whose political zealotry is matched only by their zeal for a party, downtown Madison is a place where it's easy to get in touch with your inner child.

During spring break, my friend Rebecca and I took our children to Chicago, with an itinerary that cunningly alternated visits to museums with visits to zoos and parks. Pitting high culture against popular culture, we knew what the biggest hits would be: the Ferris wheel, the zoo, the elevated train, deep-dish pizza, perhaps the Museum of Science and Industry.

So many little girls, so many dreams. When Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her nine books about growing up on the American frontier of the 1870s and 1880s, she had no idea her idealized portrait of pioneer life would be such powerful medicine to so many.

And every July, agates also can be found spread over Moose Lake's main street — 350 pounds of them, some even polished, hidden along with 1,200 quarters in 4 tons of rock.

But this north shore, on the leeward side of Lake Michigan, has something Minnesota's beautiful North Shore on Lake Superior doesn’t have: Sand, lots and lots of sand.

The Pilgrims still were getting a toehold on the eastern seaboard when Frenchman Jean Nicollet passed through the Straits of Mackinac on his way to Green Bay, returning to Montreal with news of a vast interior filled with fur-bearing animals.

"This is a cute town,’’ said 6-year-old Peter, noticing the covered sidewalks. "It’s like a cowboy town.’’

“Mom, it’d be worth moving to Duluth just so we could go to this beach a lot,’’ said my daughter Madeleine, jumping from rock to rock at Brighton Beach.

Duluth, once the ugly duckling of Lake Superior, now is one of the best places in Minnesota to take children. On Canal Park, the lineup of tourist attractions can keep a family entertained for days. There’s the Great Lakes Aquarium, an Omnimax theater, a skating and bicycle path, a castle-style wooden playground, a giant ore boat to go through and freighters to watch going under the Aerial Lift Bridge. There are tour boats to ride around the harbor and, nearby, a railroad depot with trains to ride along the lake.

So when I finally went to a full-service lake resort one summer, I felt a little like an imposter.

Luckily, that only lasted about 10 minutes.

I don't own it, and I never will. But for a week in July, it's mine.

Only a generation ago, most middle-class folks in this area could think of nothing better than renting a little housekeeping cabin on a lake.

"In the glory years, gosh, it seemed every Minnesotan vacationed at a Minnesota resort," says Dave Siegel, vice president of the Minnesota Resort and Campground Association.

Oh, kids are happy to let adults spend money on big-ticket trips — Disney World, Six Flags, the Wisconsin Dells.

But what do they prefer? It's elemental, my dear parents: rocks, water and sand.

It's the kind with snow — snow that comes early, stays late and blankets the forest in heaps, supplying reliable skiing and snowshoeing to people from less-blessed locales.

But in 2003, the heaps of snow didn't come there or virtually anywhere, and skiers were desperate. So was Pete Moline, who runs Afterglow Resort on a lake near the Michigan border. With no snow, he had no skiers and no livelihood. Then, he decided if snow wouldn't cover his trails, he'd bring it there himself.

Like all who are young at heart, we love traveling in Wisconsin. Not only is it beautiful, but it also tends to produce people who remember how much fun it was to be a kid — Laura Ingalls Wilder and Caddie Woodlawn, whose adventures were recounted in famous children's books; the Ringling brothers, whose fledgling spectacles in Baraboo grew into the world's biggest circus; and Tommy Bartlett, whose water-ski thrill show helped turn the Wisconsin Dells into Kid Central. Thanks to them, it's really fun to be a kid in Wisconsin.