Mars looks REALLY lonely

( Check it out....latest from Astronomy Picture of the Day )

I was using another photo taken from one of our satellites of the Valles Marineris as the desktop background on my uncle's laptop.
Uncle: "Wow....cool photo of the Black Hills!"
Me: "It's the surface of Mars."
Uncle: "No shit? Mars looks a lot like South Dakota."

Unfortunately he is correct. At least we have pine trees! Everytime I bike out by Bear Butte though -
I think that a black and white photo of that butte would look right at home in some collage of photos
taken of the surfaces of alien planets.

Here is Bear Butte:



Crazy Horse used to have his visions here - before he went West to Montana to kick the crap out of Custer
and the Oglala Sioux still controlled the
Black Hills.