"show flight plan" was indeed checked.  On a hunch, I clicked on the "more" button and the altitude planning.  It was set for multiple altitudes (which I now cannot turn off) and as soon as I cliked that "multiple" button, a message popped up, asking if I wanted to set 4500 as altitude for the flight.  when I clicked "yes," the menu went away and I was back in the sim window with HITS showing up.  I think that's a bug; probably a path y'all didn't go down during testing.  Wonder if it will be there next time I start it up? :)