"Travis Marlatte" wrote in message
You said your were southeast. Lining up 7 miles out sounds like several
miles of going out of your way. No sense doing a 3 mile base to a 7 mile
final. In my plane, 7 miles would give other people time to get in before
I got there. Without a specific instruction to line up, I would have
continued on a direct line for the airport until I could do a base for
short final.

I mentioned the base and final just as examples of my experiences at other
towered airports. The point is that I did not interpret "descend at your
discretion" to mean "do whatever you want."