Faron Wahl, Manager

Here we are…. only a week away from the 24th annual Madison car show at Prairie Village. If you’d like to showcase your vehicle, you can enter in advance or come out the day of the show and register on the spot. All the information you’ll need is available at prairievillage.org/madison-car-show. After that, buckle up for our 55th Jamboree less than three weeks later.

How in the world did we get to August already, considering our May 7 opening day was seemingly just a couple of weeks ago? The workload and 7 days-a-week nature of our season makes for some very long hours, and it tends to leave a person in a virtual time void with a skewed sense of the passing of days. A few visual prompts around the grounds, though, force the reminder that our season is really motoring along.

The most recent sign around here that we’re bearing down on Jamboree was the combine pulling into our stand of wheat this past week. Of course, several acres were left for binding and threshing, but the balance was ready to be taken out now. It’s no extraordinary crop, but compared to our wheat-raising friends across much of the Dakotas, we better not complain. At least we had wheat to harvest.

It became more than clear that spring was long gone when our never-ending mowing tasks on the grounds came to a complete halt a few weeks ago. The entire village’s tone had shifted from a rich green to a late-summer gold. Some recent rains have again spruced things up to a more fortunate moisture status than that of most folks west of here. Nonetheless, the dryer conditions overall speak to our current deep-summer position on the calendar.

The gift shop phone is getting to be toasty warm, as more folks are calling to nail down answers to a variety of Jamboree inquiries such as camping, the dinner train, features, events, entertainment, and food.

Activity around our equipment storage sheds is on the uptick, as owners get restless to check things over for readiness. Soon tractors from generations past will be rolling out into the sunlight of August for their big show. The preparation itself is a sight to behold, much less the snazzy lineups and parades offered for our guests’ viewing once the actual event kicks off.

But the ultimate, sure-fire indicator that July is running out of days? The flurry of Jamboree camping forms and payments suddenly rolling in. We receive a glut of them early in the season after the annual mailing, but then a lull settles in until we begin approaching the August 7 payment deadline. We’re close to that now, and the spike in mail volume reflects it. If your camping registration form hasn’t left your kitchen counter, you need to get it to us this week.

August is here, and Jamboree will be running full-throttle in no time. Months of preparation, thousands of exhibitors and guests, and countless invisible moving parts are headed for a common intersection here on our grounds. The result will be a grand 55th version of Prairie Village’s founding event, featuring a dressy swath of Allis-Chalmers orange. See you all here soon!