THE TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: July seventeenth, slipping down a long, water- filled tube.

Last time, we hailed that great American amusement park icon, the roller coaster. But over the last several decades, summer thrill-seekers have been enjoying a new twist with a watery whirl.

The first super waterslide was built in 1971, when a California entrepreneur dug a five-acre lake and used the excess dirt to build a giant chute. Five years later, the first fiberglass slides appeared, and a year after that, Wet 'n Wild, the country's first full-scale water park, opened in Orlando, Florida.

Today, the U.S. has more than 500 water parks which will attract 50 million visitors this summer. In addition to monster slides, some with runs up to 500 feet long and six stories high, park visitors will also find elaborate, artificial rivers, waterfalls, and waves.

The east has Water Country USA, near Williamsburg, Virginia; Sesame Place just north of Philadelphia; Wildwater Kingdom near Allentown; Water World near Erie; and Sandcastle on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. There's the Beach, ten miles north of Cincinnati; White Water Atlanta; and Noah's Ark, near Madison, Wisconsin. Four western water parks are Schlitterbahn, just outside San Antonio; Denver's Highland Hills; Seven Peaks in Provo, Utah; and Raging Waters near L.A. And the Aloha State got its first park when Hawaiian Waters opened this spring on the island of Oahu.

With daily entrance fees of up to $25 a person, water parks are a thrilling, though not exactly inexpensive, way for a family to beat the summer's heat.

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