My first cross country flight was from Palomar Airport to Zamperini Field, otherwise known as Torrence which is just outside of Los Angeles. The total flight time was 1.9 hours of beautiful costal scenery and an added view of the gorgeous green hills. This flight consisted of two takeoffs and two landings and a special passenger (my dad)! It was an eye opening experience to truly understand how to sufficiently manage an aircraft for a longer period of time. One challenge flying in southern california is there are multiple airports such as Long Beach along the way. In order to be safer we requested flight following which requires a squak code so that ATC can not only identify us but alert us to traffic.