Lake Travis Lifestyle

Your Guide to Lake Travis, Austin TX

Sandra Spicher

Get the Best Home Mortgage: Loan Officer Daffana Gray Tells You How

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As the Lake Travis area gears up for a busy real estate season, it’s a good time to be sure your mortgage fits your needs, whether you want to buy a home or refinance.

Lago Vista resident Daffana Gray has been a loan officer since 1999. She’s got plenty of advice.

“Mortgage literally means death pledge,” she says, “but getting one doesn’t have to be painful or even dramatic.” With the right attitude, some patience, and preparation, you can get a mortgage in around 30 days.

Gray takes pride in hunting out the loan program that best fits each individual borrower.

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Growing the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge One Volunteer at a Time

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If you choose to live around Lake Travis, chances are you appreciate the area’s natural beauty. Your eyes feast on verdant hills in the distance. Your ears thrill to the insistent songs of springtime birds.

As more people move to the area, though, things change. The hills get bulldozed. Squares of St. Augustine replace native trees and grasses. Wildlife has nowhere to go.

Between Lago Vista and Marble Falls along 1431 lies a national treasure: the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge.

But it’s not all refuge, at least not yet …

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IronWaves: Jonestown’s Hill Country Art Enclave

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Driving west from Cedar Park on FM 1431 toward Lago Vista, you plunge down steep grades and charge uphill around curves surrounded by oak and juniper forest. Breath starts to come easier, relief from the stress of traffic.

Slow down and pull over after cresting the hill into Jonestown for another visual treat—IronWaves Custom Iron Art Studio & Gallery at 18658 FM 1431.

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4 Weeks to Fit: Camp Gladiator in Lake Travis

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Yup, you read that right. Camp Gladiator’s calendar is a little different.

This outdoor fitness program is built on relationships and community. It offers high-energy, challenging workouts to help everyone reach their fitness goals.

Camp Gladiator’s primary North Shore trainer Danna Ferris invites you to give it a try. “Age, gender, size, race.” She ticks them off on her fingers. “None of that should stop you from taking your fitness into your own hands.”

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Burglary Prevention Tips with Mary Smothers of Security Consultant Pros

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When Mary Smothers was twenty-one she and her husband had no insurance and no security alarm.

They were renting, so she figured there was no need.

But one day she came home with her six-month-old son on her hip to find her home broken into and belongings piled in the living room. The burglars were still there.

She went to a neighbor’s and waited for police.

Too late; their home was cleaned out. The criminals were never apprehended.

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