I would log it as two legs. You only need note the name of the safety pilot when you are sole manipulator. When YOU are the safety pilot, you do not need to note the sole manipulators name. You do not need the safety pilots certificate number or signature. All the regs say is note the name. Read 61.51 (b) (1) (v).

Do you have a safety pilot column in your logbook? I've never heard of that. No need to start one.

In all honesty, you are using a commonly used FAA loophole to log this time and save money. It's been done for years and a lot of people have split time this way and moved up the career ladder. I'm not a huge proponent of logging more than 25 hours, certainly no more than 50, using the safety pilot "loophole". At some point, it will look like your just padding your logbook. At the same time, I think there is a lot of value in gaining some cross country multi time under the right circumstances.

That said, I have a nice Apache that I'll probably take down to SoCal and make available for some time building flights. email me at [email protected] if you're interested.