All this controlled airspace stuff is WAY more complicated than I usually do. Neither Tom nor I has filed a flight plan in 40 years. You want to fly? Go fly! No need to talk to anybody, as long as you stay out of those big circles.

I spent some time in the motel the night before reading the manual for my radio and figuring out how to preset the four frequencies I would need to monitor going in and the three additional frequencies coming out. And how to quickly switch between them. It turns out that the ICOM A6 has a nifty quick-recall feature (those left and right arrows). Who knew?