Things to Do in Port Lavaca

Owner and golf guru Matt Christian brings countless golf, fitness, and club-fitting certifications to Elite Golf Performance, where private lessons pair with video analysis to shave strokes from scorecards. Elite’s expert instructors help students develop simple, routine-based exercises focusing on coordination and consistency, following an Elite Golf Performance mode of instruction espoused by PGA Tour winners and US Open champions. The center also boasts a repertoire of technological teaching aids, allowing players to dissect their technique with video swing analysis.

Once you enter the Tropical Storm, everything goes dark. You blindly whip around inside the watery tunnel before being unexpectedly plunged into a pool of water—and you probably want to do it again. The Tropical Storm is one of eight water slides at Splashway Waterpark, a seasonal outdoor playground that boasts water-fueled attractions for toddlers, older kids, and adults. Sometimes the rides relax, as when visitors drift down the lazy river on waterproof water beds, but sometimes they raise pulses instead, as on the nearly straight drop of Pirate's Plunge.

From May to September visitors can enjoy the park's attractions, which were designed to entertain families with kids of any age. When energy wanes, an onsite café piles plates with all-American fare such as burgers and hot dogs. The truly exhausted can turn in for the night at the park's RV and tent camp.

Nicole Raglin founded Synergy Fitness and Pilates to reach and strengthen the underused muscles in all her clients’ bodies. A certified Pilates-Reformer teacher, over the years she’s added Anusara-yoga instructor and two forms of personal-trainer certifications to her resumé. Each of these avenues opens up more ways for her to teach people about fitness or to help society realign its spines. With the aid of six other wellness experts, Raglin’s studio holds classes seven days a week, with styles ranging from the dance-fitness fusion of Zumba to the intense bodyweight-resistance training of TRX suspension harnesses. The core of her studio’s classes remain the Reformer-based Pilates classes that started her own fitness journey.

With a barrage of consumer-friendly publications catering to a diversity of interests, Blue Dolphin Magazines' e-store simplifies the acts of gift giving and personal enlightenment. The magazine curators line their virtual shelves with more than 1,000 titles in 28 different categories, from home decorating to auto racing. Popular offerings include Us Weekly, and Good Housekeeping, though they also offer plenty of niche publications, such as Quick & Easy Crochet and How to Wear this Magazine Like a Hat. By maintaining direct relationships with the publishers, Blue Dolphin is able to present their customers with a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Within Boing Boing Bounce's climate-controlled facility, sock-clad youngsters leap about in bounce castles and clamber up towering inflatables before plummeting down slides. Kids can also climb through brightly colored tubes, paint a masterwork at the art station, or read from the picture-book table's educational titles, such as Tanya Lee Stone's B is for Bunny and Friedrich Nietzsche's N is for Nihilism. Along with hosting energetic youths at open-play sessions, Boing Boing Bounce houses two party rooms for birthday soirees with optional entertainment such as face painting and balloon sculpting.

An angler of redfish, speckled trout, flounder, and tripletail on the Matagorda Bay and Colorado River for more than a quarter century, Knee Deep Fishing's Captain Ciruti shares fishing wisdom during guided trips. The captain provides all gear on drifting trips, welcoming anglers aboard his 22-foot Gulf Coast boat powered by an E-Tec 200 engine and hundreds of bubbles blown by harnessed trout. For fishermen with their own rods and wading boots, Ciruti leads walk-and-wade excursions into shallow flats and along coastlines.

To accommodate nature admirers and history buffs, Ciruti also charters eco tours to illuminate the history, layout, and wildlife of the bay and its surrounding waterways. Skyward glances may yield views of pelicans, herons, and eagles, and below, land-bound creatures such as deer, hogs, and coyotes may make appearances along the banks.