Thanks all for the responses. Good to know I did not do anything illegal

This was a learning experience for me and I made a list of "lessons learned" from it. One was the realization of how dependent you are on the competence of your safety pilot when you are conducting this activity VFR in marginal weather. Obviously it would be best to stay out of MVFR entirely. Since I have my XC hours, I am going to keep the hood work closer to home in the future. Also, coming back at night, I did not allow enough time coming out of the hood to locate my home airport in the lights of the city and set up the approach properly. That led to some non-standard maneuvering that I would have rather avoided. And other lessons.

Thanks
alfadog