Mammoth Caves Trip - Day 1

It was the weekend with the 4th July holiday falling on Monday and we guys werent in a mood to let this chance slip away. So, we rented a car (Ford Focus) and off we went to Mammoth Caves in the state of Kentucky. It is about 3 hours 30 mins driving distance according to the directions that we got online but made it in much better time (thanks to me). There was just a wee bit of confusion at the end about the road which was solved with a call at the cottages we had booked for the night.
We left from Indianapolis (where I study, in case u didnt know) at about 6 pm and were at the cottage by 10 after an actual drive of about 2.45 hours with just one stop at Burger King and Speedway (when we feared our car was punctured :)) ). The drive was too sweet and I was lucky to be the only driver and have the wheel in my hands and experience one of the most enthralling drives through scenic ghats which turned from green to red as the sun set, and an eerie black after that... The road was a two lane road with pitch blackness and winding as much as it could and the speed limit was understandably 35MPH. It was awesome to switch off the light in between to understand what 'darkness' really is... but well we had a much better thing coming up on the next day for this. With checkin formalities done, we went off, pretty tired from the day and the drive (?) to our cottage.
It was a sweet little wooden cabin with 2 bedrooms. Oh yeah... it was 5 of us ... Amey, Megha, Poramet, Pooja and Tanmay (me) in alphabetic order. WIth 2 girls in the group a separate bedroom was necessarily essential (i dunno why, but i like that term necessarily essential) Anyways... so after getting in and praising the cottage and taking in the wooden smell of it and exploring every nook n corner, we finally sat down talking and playing a couple of games of cards (UNO). The cottage was inside the National park around the caves and so we had some deers roaming around just outside our 'abode'. After having some chats and talks we decided to retire for the day, as we had to wake up early the next day and book tickets to all the possible cave tours. Little did we know that there were scores of people thinking of the same thing and already in their snores.....