Flight to John Wayne this weekend

Flew to John wayne this weekend and spent time dodging clouds and getting special VFR to fly out of PAO. It was definitely an experience I'll never forget and was very educational, albeit a little dangerous. I didn't know the reporting points for SNA and those ATC guys sure do talk fast when they transfer you to another frequency. For those that are new pilots, if you get a freq and change to it and it turns out to be the wrong one, go back to the freq you were on an ask for clarification. So my approach to SNA got a little screwed because of that, and I still didn't know what one of the reporting points were for SNA but the tower and approach was VERY VERY nice. They helped me in, I landed, got progressive taxi and everything went smoothly. I parked it at Atlantic Aviation (FBO) one of two transient parking areas and those guys are SO NICE! I got to use the crew car for free, parking was free with a fill up of 15g or more, and the bathroom is stocked with mouth wash, aftershave, and hot water. Its pretty nice. I even had a baggage handler help me (only had $3 in tips on me but oh well).

On the flight out of SNA, it was few clouds with an over case layer at 4000 and 6000. It was interesting dodging those clouds. It was even more interesting once I got into the bay area at 9:30pm. Over cast at 2000ft. I found a hole in the cloud at E16 and flew under the cloud layer (was at 4500ft). ATC is super cool and gave me approval to fly over SJC at 1500 and above, transition over moffet (who was also super cool), and head directly into PAO. All in all scary, fun, and I won't be doing that on a regular basis.

After this, I can say I love my garmin 696 and I am installing my 430W with terrain in january. I think the 696 saved my life once during this trip.