With Kay off at church getting it ready for Easter Sunday I had the afternoon to myself. With the first full day of sunshine and 70-degree weather I knew I had to get out of the house.
I have been seeing references to the Leach Botanical Garden in multiple sources about Portland, so I decided I would head out to the Southeast part of town to check it out. However, during my planning I was looking for a place to eat that was nearby the Garden. I decided on Taqueria el Cazador simply because it had a high Google Maps rating and it was just a couple minutes from the Garden. Once I got into the Southwest I discovered that there were dozens of Mexican food carts and restaurants in the area, all of which looked like they could have been pretty good.
I made my way in, looked at the 30+ pictures of food on the wall, looked at the little sign by the cashier that said, “Today’s Special - Queso Birria Tacos” and made up my mind. After getting a Modelo Negra I sat down in the funky booth with the chairs painted in various Mexican scenes and waited.
I didn’t have long to wait though. Within 5 minutes my three tacos arrived, and I knew this was going to be good. After a little splash of salsa verde between the tortilla layers and multiple dips into the ju I plowed my way through the plate of slightly crunchy tacos with deeply flavored and tender beef birria. There is nothing like eating these things freshly made. Doordash helps you avoid the traffic and lets you multitask, but boy there is nothing like going to the source and these were good. Getting through the tacos took all of ten minutes and I was off for my second destination.
The Leach Botanical Garden is a fairly small 17 acres garden that has been around for about 40 years and sees about 30,000 visitors per year.
On most days it costs $5 to get in and on occasional Saturdays they open up the Manor house. Today happened to be one of those days.
However, there really isn’t much historical or significant about the house, so even though I walked through it I didn’t bother taking any pictures.
To be honest, the overall garden is not all that impressive. There are some beautiful flowers there that I enjoyed (especially the purple Trilliums).
And there is a Tree Walk, as they call it, that provides an elevated circular view of the property where the land slopes down, but it doesn’t really add to the experience in my opinion.
Botom line on this one, I’m just not sure it’s even worth the $5 admission and 25-minute drive from downtown. I certainly won’t be going again on my own, but I suppose if a visitor is interested at least I know a hole in the wall where there are good queso birria tacos, with a place to take a short walk afterwards just a few minutes away.
While at the restaurant I was looking at some of my emails that outline all the great things to do in Portland on the weekend and one of them talked about a place called The Grotto. I did some quick research in between ju running down my wrists and decided I would head over there after I was done with the Garden.
As it turns out, being Easter weekend I also thought, “What a better time to experience this place”.
I’ll let you read the website yourself and see the history and purpose behind this location and I’ll tell you that whether you are religious or not, this is a very peaceful beautiful site that I would definitely recommend everyone to visit at least once (I’m sure I’ll be taking Kay back here at some point).
The site is fairly close (3 miles) to the airport and the Columbia River, and is located on the bluffs, so part of the property is on the lower level probably 20-30 feet above river level and then the rest is at least 120 feet higher (more on that in a second).
On the lower level as you drive in to the parking lot you can walk the 14 Stations of the Cross without paying…
… and there is a beautiful little grotto cut into the rock face with seating for a couple hundred where I’m sure they’ll have a service tomorrow.
To get to the upper level where the main garden is you go into the visitor’s center, pay the $9.95 fee and they give you a token to put into the turnstile to take the elevator up 12-stories (I noticed on the way out however that the handicap gate swings open as that is how one exits. Though I’m guessing it would take a special kind of person to not just pay the fee… Also note, because the gentleman in front of me received it, they do provide military discounts for active duty and retirees).
I took the elevator up to the Upper Level and walked around. When I say peaceful I mean you really don’t hear much of anything even though the intersection of Highways 205 and 84 is probably only 1/4 mile away. The massive redwoods, the 100+ ft bluffs themselves and the many flowers/bushes seem to block out all external noises.
Once up top there is a little red chapel (St. Annes) in the middle of the garden and a working Servite Monastery. On the bluff side is the Marilyn Moyer Meditation Chapel facing North with an unobstructed view of the airport, the Columbia River and Mt Saint Helens. Inside they have 4-5 overstuffed leather chairs and couches to just sit in, observe the great view and think.
There are also several shrines for several nationalities and a statue of Mary that apparently had been blessed by the Pope in the 1930s if one is into that.
Again, while The Grotto is overtly Catholic shouldn’t matter to Christians in general or to anyone else. If you are looking for a place to decompress, meditate, think or just listen and look I definitely recommend checking out The Grotto in Northeast Portland, OR.