It's Our Passion To Provide You With An Experience You'll Never Forget.
Robert “Tvbob” Walton
Robert is known to his friends as “TvBob” because of his work for Gannet’s KMOH TV6 a few years back and it stuck ever since! If you ask his friends, Bob’s sense of humor is his most notable quality. He has a ready smile and quick wit that draws people to him and makes them happy.
Bob started Desert Wonder Tours in the summer of 2017 and launched it in the Fall, November 11th, Veterans Day. His vision is to share his appreciation of the desert and the attractions that have grown here with visitors around the world. He also enjoys providing locals with outings that encourage socializing and simply enjoying the nearby destinations that they might not visit on their own.
Bob’s love of the desert compels him to support desert clean-up and restoration efforts throughout the county. Desert Wonder Tours has committed to donating a percentage of its profits to support organizations that help to protect and restore desert environments.
Bob’s humor and love of the area make him the ideal guide to exploring Northwest Arizona. As he is fond of saying, “It’s not the trip, it’s the experience!”
As a youngster, Robert grew up exploring hills and peaks on his pony, Apache. Later his tastes ran more to dirt bikes where he would recount adventures to his 3 older siblings while exploring the desert and mountains around Kingman, sometimes getting lost in his explorations but ultimately finding his way home having discovered some new trail. The desert was a place of wonder for the young Robert, a thing that has not changed with the passing years.
Many years have passed since those less complicated days, and Bob has remained an active part in his community. He has served as Treasurer and on the board for the Mohave County Fairgrounds Association, served as Men’s Auxiliary president for a local VFW in honor of his father’s service in 2 foreign wars, a member of Kingman Tourist Commission, and is currently a Posse Member with the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office.
Robert Walton, is a native of Kingman, Arizona, born to William Wendell Walton and Dorothy Francis Riggs in Fort Dix, New Jersey where his father was stationed at the time. Dorothy, a resident of Queens, NY, and William met and married while William served in the armed forces during the Korean war. Upon military retirement, William returned to his hometown of Kingman to the home that his father, William Woods Walton, a mason, carpenter and miner, had built for his bride, Clara Elizabeth Aitkens. Clara was a Daughter of the Mohave County Pioneers and exceedingly active in the community. Clara’s father, William Aitken, built the first St. Johns Methodist church in Kingman. The Walton home that still stands in Kingman was built from a Sears & Roebuck kit that William ordered from back east and had delivered via the railroad. He assembled the home, completing it in 1912.
Robert’s mother, Dorothy, helped to care for Clara in her later years and caretook the family home in West Kingman until her death in 1998. Robert, the youngest of 4 children, was raised in Kingman and attended Lee Williams High School in downtown Kingman.
Bob’s heritage goes back to the late 1800’s near the time of founding of Kingman. His great-great-great Grandfather on the side of his grandmother, (Clara Aitken Walton), was John Cofer who homesteaded 160 acres in what is now part of old town Kingman. John dug the first well in Kingman, by hand. The story goes that his neighbors would jeer and laugh at the determined John for “trying to find water in the desert”, but he paid them no mind and after digging 75 feet down through Mohave desert sand and rock, his determination paid off.
Jim Hinckley
Jim Hinckley is an internationally acclaimed author, lecturer, historian, tour guide, and tour development consultant with three primary areas of expertise; Route 66, the American southwest and the American automobile industry between 1885 and 1980. His portfolio of published work includes fifteen books, and more than five hundred feature articles for a wide array of publications including True West, Old Cars Weekly, Hemmings Classic Car, Route 66, Antique Power, and Cars & Parts magazine.
His work has been the subject of interviews on television and radio programs, for blogs and podcasts, and for a variety of print media. Among the most prestigious of these are Jay Leno’s Garage, Rudy Maxa’s Travel World, and Frommer’s.
