Well, only in my dreams.

I wanted to travel to the one place on the map that Hunter S. Thompson had so eloquently described in his book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," but once again I find myself in the midst of another family vacation. This time it was different. My sister had chosen to go to Las Vegas for her 21st birthday. With my grandmother and my sister's boyfriend, Gilbert, invited, we made plans for our trip.

I envisioned the old Vegas I had so lovingly adored in the movie "Casino." When the mobsters ruled Vegas, everything seemed to run so smoothly. I wanted to ride with the high rollers and tip the parking guy. My attention quickly snapped back to the present. Fat chance any cool stuff will go on in Las Vegas now.

My mother sifted through packages and deals on the Internet and found that our best option was to stay at the New York-New York. The number of rooms we needed was only available the last weekend of Humboldt State's spring break but I jumped at the opportunity to spend a relaxing weekend gambling like a maniac and drinking like a fish in Sin City.

I found a ride home for spring break with a friend of mine and a week later my family and I were in the San Francisco airport being checked in.

Since the September 11th terrorist attacks have changed the way commercial airlines run security, we arrived three hours before our scheduled departure. It actually was not difficult to get through the lines and our party of six was quickly scanned and left alone.

The moment the beverage cart wheeled through the aisle of our American Airlines 737, my sister signaled the stewardess and ordered a screwdriver for herself and her boyfriend.

I leaned over my grandmother and made a snide comment to my sister.

"Startin' out a little early this mornin', aren't we?"

"So, what! It's noon somewhere in the world and flights make me nervous so back off," my sister quipped.

I wanted danger, excitement, and maybe a little romance on this trip. So much for romance when I am sharing a room with my grandmother, who by the way, is a really cool lady, but come on. There was no way I was going to get away with anything like that.

I, at least, wanted to walk out of that place with some money in my pocket, so the minute we hit our hotel I was down in the casino trying my luck on the one-armed bandits, which are aptly named. I quickly gambled away my first $20 on a machine with flaming sevens.

I decided to pace myself and ventured through the casino. I had never been in New York-New York before and it was truly unique inside. According to one website promoting the hotel: "The resort dramatically recreates the Manhattan skyline, complete with 12 beautifully colored New York-style skyscrapers that house 2,035 guest rooms and suites. These interconnected structures are approximately one-third the actual size of the New York City architecture. The tallest building replicates the Empire State Building at 529-feet, 47 stories, making New York-New York Hotel & Casino one of the tallest buildings in Nevada."

There were streets that lined the inside of the hotel that were all labeled to match actual streets in New York.

"To complete the whole picture and truly put visitors in the front seat of a New York cab, design elements throughout the property also reflect the history, color and diversity of Manhattan, Park Avenue, Central Park, Broadway, Times Square, Financial District and Greenwich village. Other icons include a 150-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty; a Coney Island-style roller coaster called Manhattan Express; a 300-foot long replica of the Brooklyn Bridge; and a replica of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument."

It is hard to imagine that in 1941 Thomas Hull opened the 63-room El Rancho Resort/Casino in the middle of the desert and here I stand today on what Las Vegas has built itself into and staying at the largest hotel on the strip.

My family ran around Las Vegas during the evening time and I found myself sitting at a slot machine, sipping whatever the lady brought me, and watching the reels spins.

My dad yanked me off of the life-sucking quarter machine and sat me in front of the roulette table.

"How about you try your luck here?" he asked.

My dad asked for $200 in chips and the dealer slid huge stacks of pink chips in our direction. I had no idea how much each stack was worth, so I grabbed a whole bunch of them and slid them onto red.

The dealer waved his hand over the table to stop all betting and my dad looked down at the table to see what I had done.

"You placed your entire $100 on red!" my dad explained.

The dealer broke through my father's hysterics and said, "AND RED 32 IS THE WINNING NUMBER, folks!"

I looked at my dad and smiled.

"It's OK, though, because I won!"

The dealer slid a stack of equal size over to the stack I had placed on red. I had doubled the money my dad had given me in one minute. I thought about all the things I could do with the cash and yanked it off the table.

I looked over at my dad and said, "I'm taking this and leaving. I have no desire to play anymore and I need a drink! You need a drink! Let's all have a round of drinks!"

I found my sister and her boyfriend and told them all about my adventure at the roulette table.

The next suggestion was to check out the Coyote Ugly bar in the back of the hotel. The bar is exactly like the movie complete with dancing girls, seltzer water, and loud music. We danced until 5 a.m. or until we couldn't feel our feet and headed back to our rooms for some much-needed rest.

I gazed out my window that overlooked the strip of brightly colored hotels, each one brighter than the next.

The sun was just starting to peak over the mountains and the town of glitz and glamor fell silent. All the lights went out as if on cue and the stretch of casinos had the look of painted-up women who'd just washed their faces.

The color was gone.

I went to sleep dreaming about the moment the ball on the roulette table fell into the red space.

The rails of the roller coaster that encompassed the hotel taunted me. I wanted to ride that crazy piece of twisted metal, but I am older now. I need to be more of an adult. Screw it! I am going on the damn coaster!

I yanked my sister out of bed and dragged her and her beau down to the line in front of the coaster. After an hour of yawning and walking two inches at a time, it was finally time to let go of all the stresses that had wound me up throughout the semester.

I boarded and strapped myself in. I braced myself for one hell of a ride. I left all my frustrations with the Lumberjack (the HSU newspaper) at the peak of the tallest dip.

It was the last wave of fun before I went through my rigorous flight schedule back to Arcata.

I understand that there are horrid people that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people on September 11th but do these security people even know what they are looking for?

I was frisked, checked, and swabbed FOUR times before I reached home sweet home. I was actually very cooperative for the first couple of embarrassing underwear exposures but when we reached San Francisco and they tried to do it again, I got angry.

I know that the airlines have no idea what a terrorist looks like, but come on! They don't even know what they are looking for. They say they pull people "randomly." They don't pull anyone randomly. The security gives you the once over and if there is a nose hair out of place, your butt is in front of the line with your shoes off, and you're hoping to God they don't ask you to grab your ankles.

I will say I have a lot to say about the security in airlines. It's because I spent six hours of my day coming home trying to get through it.

I do feel that the trip helped me grow as a person because I was alone while going through the experience of trying to get home. I spent hours entertaining myself in the airports and kept my cool when airline security pulled my dirty underwear out of my bag for the umpteenth time.

I just took solace in the fact I would never have to see any of those people again.