The Topps were on the road because five months before， a nephew had told Joe there was work to be had in the Napa Valley and he and Nancy decided to gamble. Breaking up their home in Fort Wayne， Indiana， they packed up the kids and Snoopy and set out for California. But once there， the warehousing job Joe hoped for didn' t materialize， Nancy and the kids were very homesick， and their funds melted away. Now it was January and， the gamble lost， they were on their way back to Fort Wayne.