Things To Do In Cedar Park

Austin's Boat Tours' experienced captains lead tours around Lake Travis aboard luxurious, amenity-laden watercrafts. Gather up to 15 friends, family members, or friends' family members and venture across the peaceful waters on a 34-foot party barge, complete with enclosed restroom, shower, sink, and stove. Burgers, brats, and pale bodies can be tanned to perfection on the built-in grill or cushy, sunlit seating areas, and a cooler can keep self-provided beverages or stowaway polar bears chilly. Meanwhile, riders can blare their appreciation for Mother Nature's beautiful handiwork using the boat's iPod-compatible stereo. Maritime merrymaking is made merrier with a helpful array of extra services, including safe transportation to and from the boat's departure site.

The sagacious proprietors of Row Paddle Brushy Creek enable year-round water wrangling on idyllic Brushy Creek Lake with a fleet of stable tandem kayaks. Beginning paddlers and veteran boaters alike can take to the sturdy sit-on-top kayaks while careening around the 38-acre lake for 60 nature-filled minutes, catching glimpses of nearby fauna while disciplining errant waves with precise bops on their heads. Tote along your rod, tackle and reel in mealtime during a six-hour jaunt on Fishing Fridays, beckoning tasty water residents away from their underwater condo association meetings and toward your dinner plate. The Bushy Creek Lake Park area features a playground, nature trails, picnic tables, and barbecue grills for preparing fresh catches.

Jeff Hunt probably understood the trajectory of his career path in a way most people don't. With an aerospace engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin and experience working with Tracor Aerospace after college, he is very familiar with how things move forward. Though most aerospace engineers are focused on building spaceships and watering blooming stars, Hunt chose to focus on hang-gliders. Over the past 20 years, he has competed in cross-country hang-gliding competitions and become a USHGA-certified advanced tandem instructor. At Fly Texas and Fly Mexico, he shares his passion with students during half-day and daylong hang-gliding classes or shuttles more experienced gliders on flights.

New sailors cut their teeth aboard Austin Sailboat Rentals' fleet of dinghy boats. It doesn't take long for the company's instructors to explain the operation of these lightweight vessels, which consist of only a single sail. Their ease of navigation lets fledgling captains and passengers focus on sailing's more enjoyable aspects: the wind in their hair as they take the view of downtown Austin from Lady Bird Lake. And unlike Mr. Peanut, Austin Sailboat Rentals isn’t defined by its name; the company also rents out other recreational vessels including seacycles, kayaks, larger day sailors, stand-up paddle boards, canoes, and bikes.

The thuds of thunderous groundstrokes and the squeaks of shuffling feet resonate across the outdoor court complex at Austin Tennis Center. The hard, deep-blue surface hosts adult and junior tennis clinics and drills on its collection of regulation courts, and the 36-foot Quick-Start courts are scaled down for kids age 10 and under and lethargic ballboys.

Director of Tennis Lincoln Ward shapes the Center's curriculum, drawing from an instructional career that spans more than a decade and includes a stint as head coach of the Concordia University tennis team. Pupils at various levels have won city and state championships thanks to his thoughtful coaching. He's also initiated a free, afterschool tennis program that has caught on at more than 30 elementary and middle schools in the Austin area.

Led by head instructor Gary A. Schill, who has 37 years of martial-arts experience, Peak Performance Training Center instills life skills and strength in fitness-hungry students. A cadre of MMA programs spans martial arts from A to Z—from the ground-fighting smarts of Gracie jiujitsu to the elbows- and knees-focused training of muay thai—and the Full Body Fitness program includes personal training, boot camps, sport-specific training, olympic weight lifting, and yoga.