The trip back to Henderson was uneventful except that I made a mistake
talking to approach control. The guy I got was not helpful and only
leads me to blow off contacting ATC to contribute to safe and orderly
traffic flow. In fact, if I have to do it again in that area...maybe
everywhere...I will just fly according to all approved and accepted
VFR rules and not talk to ATC. It may have the effect of causing
airliners to divert around me but when ATC wants to be rude and
unhelpful to a GA pilot, I will quit playing nice.

Care to flesh that out? I've never run across an approach controller so bad
that he made me want to stop using Flight Following! In the Midwest,
anyway, they're usually quite cordial and helpful.

I don't recall everything he said but it included "Stay out of Class
B, I won't provide terrain info, navigation..." and whatever else he
said. My impression of his words and tone was "Why am I even staying
on this frequency?"

My point was not that I will not use flight following rather I may no
longer talk to approach controllers near Class B. They seem to
dislike GA aircraft.

I had contacted LA center a reasonable distance from Las Vegas to
facilitate ATC separartion of my flight with airliners going into
KLAS. Going west just south of KLAS was not an issue with approach.
It was coming back from Death Valley that the "service" left me with a
sour view of them.

On the up side, the controller at Henderson was wonderful.

The same sort of thing happens near home. Some of the controllers at
COS are surly towards GA aircraft wheras the folks at PUB are friendly
and a joy to work with.

Ron Lee