We pulled into Elvis Presley Blvd RV Park after dark, way after dark. It was nearly 7:30pm on an Autumn evening and we’d been driving all day, as for some reason we felt an urgent need to get as far away from Pennsylvania as we could. We were headed to Austin, TX, and the thought of staying in Memphis, TN for a week as a layover was quite appealing. After all, if the city could produce the King of Rock n’ Roll, the King of Country, and the King of Blues, it has to be worth a look, eh?The office was closed, and so I started to read the after hours procedures sign. A car pulled up alongside the RV, but I didn’t pay much attention to it, assuming it was just a camper or a visitor. I began dialing the number on the sign.“Hello,” came the thick, Boomhauer-esque voice over the phone, but with enough Southern drawl to start a Civil War.“Hi, I was hoping to get a spot tonight for my RV. Should I just pick something out or…”“How’s about you take about 15 steps backward.” Odd, I thought, then I realized that it was the owners in the car which had driven up beside us. The man was friendly enough after that (and me backing up a little, do I have bad breath?), even if his first impressions could use more help than Amazon around Christmas, his wife much friendlier, but when we asked for a different spot than the one he’d given us (the original was under some intensely bright city lights) he began to make inside jokes with a friend of his standing nearby, asking us where we were from. When I told him Pittsburgh, he just said, “Alright, well I guess you’ll be able to handle it.” I later found out from his wife that he was referring to the noise that comes from some apartments, a projects, which are just behind and on the other side of the RV park’s fence. The apartments didn’t end up being that noisy, though now and then (and into the late night) you could occasionally hear someone screaming at someone else.The park itself is interesting. There’s no store, no playgrounds and very little grass, but it’s not just a parking lot either. Most of the spots are packed directly beside eachother, but while we were there, at least, the park was empty enough that you would have an entire empty spot or two or three beside you, so everyone wasn’t packed in door-to-sewage tank or anything. Many of the spots actually had picnic tables in them, which would make it impossible to park anything longer than 15′ or so there, which made it obvious that the park probably never filled to capacity and finding a spot with another empty spot next to it was the whole idea. The majority of the spots, then, were just concrete slabs, but there were a few spots with cozy little grass patches and even some that were situated under and between trees. Two or three spots on the hillside near the camp office had ample grass surrounding them. Given that this park is very close to Memphis’ downtown (about 8 miles), don’t come expecting to be in the middle of Yellowstone or something.There are no firepits and no one was having a fire, so I’m assuming that this has to do with Memphis law. The area surrounding the park can be described in two simple phrases: strip malls and Elvis souvenirs. Graceland is only a half mile away and so the whole area is packed full of places to buy refrigerator magnets and boxer shorts with Elvis’ face on them (both fat Elvis, thin Elvis, and limited edition Army Elvis). Memphis does have a downtown, but most of what surrounds the city itself is endless strip malls full of chain store after gas station after chain store. We visited Whole Foods grocery store in the eastern suburbs, and the checkout girl there seemed very worried for us, spouting what we’d also seen in reviews online: the area near Graceland is very dangerous, Memphis’ worst. Whether or not this is true I can’t be sure, though we didn’t have any incident. The area where Whole Foods is located was completely full of white people in a city that is 60% black, and the area where the park is located was almost exclusively black, so the reason behind all of this chastising the Graceland area may simply be good old fashioned white fear, or it may legitimately be a dangerous area and we just saw absolutely none of it.If you really want to see Memphis, particularly if you want to see Graceland, then this park will be great for you. You could catch a bus into downtown Memphis (about a 30 – 45 minute bus ride on the 43) and Graceland is in walking distance, plus this park is substantially cheaper than Memphis Graceland RV Park just down the road. However, if you want peace, quiet or room for the kids to play and the dog to run, try your luck elsewhere.