Not Quite Qualifying X Country
When I learnt in California we did two cross countries of an hour and two hours, both dual and then solo, before going on the QXC.
On my 2 hour solo flight I was late setting off, into almost perfect weather as you would expect. Unfortunately having neglected to check my DI to the compass at my final turning point (overhead Agua Caliente for those of you who know the area) I headed off at about 15 degrees south of my intended course. When I couldn't find my first checkpoint on that leg I circled and circled over the mountains and couldn't identify and landmarks other than a lake slightly to my south so I headed off to it and started to try and find it on my chart.
After I'd spent a minute or so orbiting the lake a call was made on the traffic advisory frequency from a jump plane advising of free fall parachutists in the air and so can all traffic please keep away from lake so and so !! Of course I didn't know the name of the lake I was over, didn't know where lake so and so was and had visions of me ploughing through a stream of parachutists so I vacated the area ASAP (once I had got back on the ground I found the lake in question and it was over 150 miles away). So I finally decided to fly a reverse bearing back out to the last turning point and start in again which was when I realised my DI had progressed.
Of course having spent about 40 minutes 'being lost' by that time it was getting late in the day and I was flying into a setting sun and a marine layer had come in off the pacific so the valleys were full of mist. By the time I found my way back to KSEE I had to decend to avoid the SOCAL airspace I was basically flying in fog at twilight and not surprisigly became disorientated. Which is when I contacted the tower and asked for a radar steer to the field which eventually came into sight (well the runway threshold lights did anyway) when I was on a slightly less then 2 mile final.
When I did find my way to terra firma my instructor (who had been up with someone else) was incredulous that I had just got back before he did.
As you can imagine, I am a stickler for checking my DI now !!!.