Maria, my oldest daughter, nodded her head in agreement and added, “It felt as we were in the center.”

“The center of what?” I asked.

“Of everything,” she answered. “Like the whole world met there and we were in the center.”

It has been eight years since we have been on that beach. Charity is 16 now, not eight, but she remembers. Seth and Maria remember and so do I. It was an extraordinary night. Something magical was in the air.

We were lucky to find the beach. We were looking for a place to spend the night and decided to get off the beaten path. The distance from the main road to the beach looked so short on the map, just a couple of kilometers, and the road didn’t look too bad. About three kilometers along, it started to deteriorate. Badly. Once we thought we had lost our way in the desert, on a dry dusty patch, but then along came some more ruts and we continued with relief. After five kilometers, turning around was not an option. We knew it was just over the hill. After ten kilometers we began to think about camping in the desert. Eleven kilometers. Twelve. And there it was! The beautiful Pacific ocean lay in front of us like a huge welcoming mat. We descended the hill and crept through the tiny town to the beach. Once parked, we grabbed a bite to eat and rushed out to play.

It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. I couldn’t put the video camera down and avidly tracked the kids as they played on the beach, black silhouettes leaping and running against the fiery sky and red tipped waves.

The sunset did not fade. Instead it changed colors. Slowly it shifted to a translucent blue, as pure as the water beneath it. A single star shone above the kids as they played and their laughter sparkled toward me like fairies. We were in the center of the perfect moment.

That special night had its beginning about a year earlier when we had decided to become nomads. I don’t know what first gave us the idea to travel, but we decided just three short months before we set out. All I can say is that it felt like the right thing to do at the time. We sold our house and some of our belongings. The rest was put in storage. I studied so that I could home school all three kids. Then we bought a camper and headed north.

The kids loved traveling. They loved everything about it. From north of the Arctic Circle to Baja, Mexico, they loved it. We camped and hiked, lived in parks, and went on countless excursions. Each day was different. Life became an adventure and we became explorers. The kids gloried in it.

I quickly learned that except for Math and English, formal schooling was unnecessary. For math they played with a little math computer and for English I read them children’s classics: A Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy, A Wrinkle in Time, Black Beauty, The Secret Garden, and more, books I enjoyed just as much as they did.

The rest of their schooling came from life. Geology in Carlsbad Caverns and from two geologists we met in Kitsault. Astronomy from the Northern Star and the Southern Cross and all the heavens in between. History from the museums and monuments we visited, like the gravesite of General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the K’san Village in Hazelton. Art from fancy galleries and ancient caves. Biology from the buzzards who stood still as statues on top of cactuses with wings spread as they cooled themselves in a breeze we couldn’t even feel, and from many other familiar and strange creatures. And pure delight from a white bear cub with a dirty nose, quick feet and a black mom in the Nass. The only place I’m not sure of is Las Vegas. I don’t know if they learned anything there. But they sure had fun.

They built elaborate, multi-roomed forts, complete with gardens of spruce and hemlock in a logging landing near Terrace, explored bat caves in New Mexico, sat on wooden benches in mission churches in Mexico, went horseback riding in Colorado, bottle-fed baby caribou in the Yukon, witnessed the re-enactment of the gunfight at the OK corral in Arizona, met Minnie Mouse in Disneyland, trapped scorpions in the hills in Baja (until I found out what they were doing!), built intricate tidal dams and castles on northern beaches, and sailed on the Sea of Cortez, with dolphins leaping before the boat. And that’s just to name very few.

They learned tolerance from the people they met. They learned that people really aren’t that different after all and not to be afraid of others, even when they speak a strange language and are a different color.

One time I overheard a conversation between a baked-goods vendor and Seth, then 11 years old. The man spoke to Seth in halting English, but instead of replying in English, Seth replied in equally unsure Mexican. They talked for about two minutes this way, each speaking the other’s language, interspersed with laughter. They grinned and waved as they parted, each lifted by the other’s attempt to speak his language.

They also learned to help others. When a family with four children became stranded in Mexico with no money, every campsite along the beach contributed either food or money, whatever they could afford to give, until the family could make it out of Mexico. Getting right into the spirit of things, Maria gave one of the little girls her favorite toy pony.

But in spite of all the good things, there was a downside that sometimes makes me wonder if we did the right thing. We have moved a lot since that year. My kids have made good friends they’ve had to leave. After the house sold, we weren’t able to afford a house of our own for five more years. We haven’t been able to afford the things some families take for granted since then. But then I see the confidence in their eyes, and I am reassured. In some strange way, that year of adventure defines them. It’s obvious they are proud of who they are.

I think my kids are right: the first night in Mexico, on the beach I can’t even remember the name of, everything changed. That is where all things came together and we were at the center. The center of their childhood. The center of our power. The center of an ending and a beginning. The year of adventure became part of us and changed us forever. We couldn’t see it clearly then, but it became part of our own centers.

On that beach where all things were alive and one, even the ocean seemed like a huge animal stroking my children’s feet as they chased each other up and down the shore. They remember, and they haven’t looked back since, except with an ear-to-ear grin.

I refuse to do any differently.