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Dry, We Said

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For a break from water world, consider the Dells’ other dead-of-winter attractions:

Tommy Bartlett Exploratory
This is an indoor, year-round offshoot of the Tommy Bartlett water-ski show that has been a staple of summers here since just about the alast Ice Age, when the flood from a melting glacier carved the area’s gorges and bluffs. You’ve seen many of the same science exhibits at every children’s museum. What you haven’t seen is the Mir space module that Bartlett himself bought from a Russian museum in 1997, a year before he died a wealthy, if eccentric, man. 560 Wisconsin Dells Pkwy.; 608/254-2525; tommybartlett.com.

Top Secret
It’s an upside-down White House. Really. And not only is that what it is, that’s all it is. You could go on the tour and gawk at the chairs and desks on the ceiling and hear how some sort of catastrophe or revolution turned the seat of the executive branch literally upside down. (Gabriel, afterward: "I felt sorry for the guide.") But the view of an upside-down White House from the parking lot (below) is plenty—and it’s free. 527 Wisconsin Dells Pkwy.; 608/254-6700; dells.com.

Ghost Out-Post Haunted House
We skipped the Museum of Historic Torture Devices because, well, who needs it? But the first two exhibits here were of a hanging and an electrocution. We quickly backtracked to the entrance with a fresh understanding of the NO REFUNDS sign at the box office. 633 Wisconsin Dells Pkwy.; 608/254-2127; dells.com.

Circus World Museum
The onetime site of the Ringling Bros. winter headquarters is located in Baraboo, 12 minutes south of the Dells. (We detoured here on our way back to the airport in Madison.) During the summer there are circus acts, but year-round you can see century-old circus wagons, calliopes, and costumes in a series of cavernous storage barns, a ghostly setting that all four of us found chillingly beautiful. 550 Water St., Baraboo; 866/ 693-1500; circusworldmuseum.com.

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