Treasures of Time
Visiting Treasures of the Pharaohs
It was another outing to the big city of San Francisco for my daughter and me. San Francisco is our lemonade, you see. After spending months in and out of the halls of Benioff Children’s Hospital, I learned the treasures that lie within that massive compound across the Bay Bridge. Life gave us lemons, and while our citrus harvest seemed full to the brim, I got to know the city around the hospital and multiple “San Franciscos” that exist within that 7x7 zone. Since that time, a few treasures have found their way into my heart.
One is the fine art scene. It began with a special fashion exhibit at the De Young Museum about two years ago. Three times makes tradition, and so now, with a new exhibit opening, I returned for my fourth visit to the special exhibits of fine arts museums of San Francisco.
“Treasures of the Pharaohs” opened on August 1 at the De Young Museum. The exhibit brings together 130 works spanning 3,000 years of history, including objects from the Golden City, a newly unearthed workers’ community near Luxor.
My daughter has caught Egyptomania, not unlike Greeks, Romans, and finally, the British of the 1920s when Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon discovered the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in 1922.
I knew going into the exhibit that this was special, but as we moved from room to room, seeing towering stone statues to gilded masks to intricate gold jewelry, inside and outside coffin covers, elaborate designs, detailed sculpture molds less than an inch tall, it was clear that this was an opportunity of a lifetime. Beside a stone sarcophagus, I nearly wept.
A man beside me said to his wife, “We didn’t see this when we were there, did we?” Even those who tour the Valley of the Kings were seeing some of these artifacts for the first time.
It drew not only from the Golden City, but the tombs of Tanis, the only intact royal pharaonic burials ever uncovered, with findings to rival the nearly intact tomb of King Tutankhamun.
On everything, there was writing. These were a people of the written word. How remarkable. How we must take our own words for granted. Our fleeting they feel when recorded only digitally.
Following the exhibit, we spent an hour just off the Pacific Ocean, on the sands along Ocean Street, having a picnic of Trader Joe’s prepared food. I took her next to the Sutro Baths, originally designed by Adolph Sutro. These ruins were once an ocean pool aquarium among the rocks north of the Cliff House, expanded into a massive public bathhouse that covered three.
Sutro’s dream for the Baths was to provide a healthy, recreational and inexpensive swimming facility for thousands of San Franciscans. According to the National Parks Service, a classic Greek portal opened to a massive glass enclosure containing seven swimming pools at various temperatures. There were slides, trapezes, springboards and a high dive. The power of the Pacific Ocean during high tide could fill the 1.7 million gallons of water required for all the pools in just one hour. The Baths could accommodate 10,000 people at one time and offered 20,000 bathing suits and 40,000 towels for rent.
But the baths were not commercially successful over the long-term, and after closing, some proposed redevelopment, and finally, a 1996 fire that destroyed what was left; all we have now are a couple of rough trails as part of Land’s End Lookout and concrete ruins tagged here and there with graffiti, but open to the public for urban exploring as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
From there, with birthdays on our minds, we visited Susie Cakes, a little jaunt away, taking us past the magnificent Palace of Fine Arts, and into a bustling shopping district with Gap, Books Inc., Benefit Make-up, Madewell, and a vintage shop I couldn’t linger long enough to visit. Susie Cakes first opened in 2006 and is named after the founder’s grandmother. Its tagline is “Simple. Timeless. Delicious.” I will testify to that. With a mint green and bubblegum pink, vintage-look to the place, iced cakes and cupcakes, large-scale but crispy thin cookies, and generous slices, Susie Cakes is a perfect once-in-a-while treat. The flavors are excellent and true to their name; the cake is rich and substantial. Each cake slice would serve two people well, but my daughter planned ahead to purchase her own, and she joyfully ate it after lunch, after dinner, and very nearly after breakfast the next day.
So concluded our San Francisco adventure. I’m shoring up in my mind the treasures of the city to the treasures of the pharaohs to the treasures of my heart: climbing through ruins, getting nervous as the birds began to stalk us, laughing over how long a slice of cake can last if it’s big enough, and planning ahead for the next rendition of these outings – in short, time spent together. The time which is fleeting. Time from which we will not have the stone monuments to remember. Time marked with a language between just us two, that will be one day lost when the last of us passes away. I’m storing up the treasures of these times, and the memories, and the river of joy that runs through it.
Originally published in the Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch on August 11, 2026. The Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch is part of MidValley Publications and is committed to the power of the positive press. Reprinted with Permission.
The Hughson Chronicle & Denair Dispatch is a weekly, print-only local newspaper. To subscribe, call 209–358-5311.