Thanks Gerald. All points well taken. I'm training at a busy Class D field
on the fringe of Class B, so I'm very comfortable with busy controlled
airspace and radio communication. That wasn't the issue. I guess I thought
this flight was so easy, I didn't need the flight following. The terrain
was all familiar and conditions were as CAVU as CAVU gets (I could see stuff
I know was 40 miles away). In fact, in retrospect, I got fixated on the
wrong city and wrong airport from perhaps 20 miles away and ignored the
evidence that I was off course.