Discover Clayton by E-Bike with Triangle Adventures Food Drinks and History Tours

[00:00:00] Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of the Best of Johnston County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And on today’s episode, we have David and Marlo from Triangle Adventure is here to talk about their e-bike business, where they take people on tours of Clayton and the surrounding area and throw in drinks and food, and history.

[00:00:21] Jonathan Breeden: And I think it’s absolutely fascinating. I’ve been looking forward to this for several weeks since I’ve met them. I really want to do one of these tours here. And I think I will and I think you’re going to find this really fascinating as to what they’re doing with tours around Clayton. It’s really neat.

[00:00:36] Jonathan Breeden: But before we get to them, I wanted to invite you to like, follow, and subscribe to the Best of Johnston County podcast, wherever you’re seeing this podcast today, whether it be on Apple, Spotify, or LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok or Twitter or any of the other best of Johnston County media pages. If you like and subscribe, you’ll be made aware of future episodes of the Best of Johnston County podcast.

[00:00:58] Jonathan Breeden: The Best of Johnston County podcast [00:01:00] comes out every single Monday. By now we’re up to almost maybe by the time this episode runs 50 episodes of the Best of Johnston County podcast. It’s been a tremendous success, people really enjoyed it. And if you’d also do us the kind of favor of sharing this podcast on your Instagram or any of your other social media channels, so other people will be aware that would be greatly appreciated.

[00:01:21] Jonathan Breeden: David and Marlo. Welcome.

[00:01:22] David Harrington: Thank you.

[00:01:22] Jonathan Breeden: No problem. I really am looking forward to this. I’m not the most adventurous person in the world, but I think I could ride an e-bike.

[00:01:29] Jonathan Breeden: So anyway, but before we get to the e-bike stuff, let’s start with where are you from?

[00:01:33] Jonathan Breeden: So biography, David.

[00:01:35] David Harrington: Biography. I grew up in New York, basically my trajectory, I moved to North Carolina to go to school in Charlotte when I was 19 and then hung out there for a while, and spent a little too long in college, if you know what I mean. Left there, moved to California for a little while, and eventually came back to Raleigh where I met my wife, Marlo.

[00:01:53] Marlo Harrington: Well, I’m originally from California, so we got the East Coast West Coast vibe going on grew up in California [00:02:00] and came over to North Carolina and specifically Johnston County about 20 years ago. Yeah, just decided that it was a great place to live. And so I’ve been here for a long time watching the growth of the area.

[00:02:14] Marlo Harrington: Since being in North Carolina, I attended UNC Chapel Hill, and currently work as a mental health therapist and substance use therapist for Duke.

[00:02:24] Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well, at least you moved to a better place because Duke is better than Chapel Hill. Even though I went to NC State, I married a Duke graduate.

[00:02:33] Jonathan Breeden: So I’m kind of a Duke fan, sort of, they’re not playing state, but we all agree that we don’t like Chapel Hill, you know, like I’m just saying.

[00:02:45] Jonathan Breeden: I know, right now. I just, you know, Chapel Hill, but we are the ACC champions of basketball and we did get NC State to go to the final four this year and we’ve beaten Carolina football three straight years.

[00:02:56] Jonathan Breeden: So we’re doing pretty good right now to be a state fan, right? State fans are [00:03:00] doing well right now. Well, that’s great.

[00:03:01] Jonathan Breeden: So what’s your educational background? I see you went to Chapel Hill. What kind of degree did you get?

[00:03:05] Marlo Harrington: So I’m a licensed clinical social worker.

[00:03:07] Marlo Harrington: So, yeah, so I’m licensed to provide mental health and I’m also a substance use counselor. So I’m a licensed clinical addiction specialist as well.

[00:03:14] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, cool. All right. And what’s your educational background? I know you work for Verizon.

[00:03:18] David Harrington: Yeah, I actually work for the nation’s largest authorized retailer of Verizon, which I know is a slightly fine line.

[00:03:23] David Harrington: Most people don’t care, but basically I do a lot of Verizon stuff, a lot of paper pushing and communications behind the scenes at the headquarters. So not the most exciting job, but listen, it pays the bills and I really like it.

[00:03:33] Jonathan Breeden: Well, I’ve been a Verizon customer for a long time.

[00:03:37] Jonathan Breeden: I ended up with them because, right?

[00:03:39] Jonathan Breeden: Well, I mean, I ended up with them after they bought out, everything got bought out. Right? I think at some point I was with Alltel. I mean, and through a couple of different mergers, there’s now Verizon.

[00:03:49] Jonathan Breeden: So, yeah, they just kept consolidating kind of like the airline industry. And so it is what it is. Well, that’s cool. Well, so y’all have this business which provides e-bike [00:04:00] tours.

[00:04:00] Jonathan Breeden: So tell me a little bit about when and how did Triangle Adventures came to be.

[00:04:05] David Harrington: Well, we both, again, have full-time jobs. We were just kind of on the weekends. What we would do is we would go e-biking on the trail, on the Mountain to Sea Trail, also known as the Greenway Trail, also known as the News River Trail.

[00:04:18] David Harrington: So that big old trail that goes around Clayton, Raleigh, and all around from about 1,175 miles of trail. We would just bike on it and walk on it and walk the dogs on it and run on it. We’re pretty active people, we use it all the time.

[00:04:30] David Harrington: So one day we were just kind of riding our bikes on it, and Marlo goes to me, she was like, are there any tour companies that go on this trail or highlight this trail? Like, I can’t believe more people aren’t on the trail today cause it was this gorgeous fall day and it was beautiful foliage.

[00:04:45] David Harrington: And we’re just walking around like, I cannot believe there aren’t more people out here. And we started looking deeper into it and found out that there used to be a Segway tour in Raleigh a while back and they went out of business and there’s nobody doing tours.

[00:04:57] David Harrington: So we were like, we love history, [00:05:00] we love the scenery, we love a little beer every now and again. We love biking, we love just, you know, doing fun things. And we had e-bikes at the time.

[00:05:09] David Harrington: So we were like, man, what if we could pull all these things together and do a tour company? And she sort of threw the idea out there. And she’s more of the creative piece of it. I’m more of like the, all right, let’s put the rubber to the road and like actually start making phone calls and setting up the website and really digging into it. And we started, you know, mapping out the tours and learning the history.

[00:05:33] David Harrington: And we’ve now got four tours, all of them go on the greenway a little bit on public roads as well, cause we got to get to the hotspots that we stopped at, but our newest tour is now a ghost tour as well, and that goes to Raleigh. But our Clayton tours in Johnston County are pretty awesome tours, and they’re largely on the Greenway, and they have a lot of cool stuff in them.

[00:05:52] Jonathan Breeden: Well, cool. Well, tell me a little bit about what’s involved in these tours, where they go. I know there’s one that includes lunch and starts and ends at Deep [00:06:00] River Brewing there in downtown Clayton. There’s one that is just the trail off and doesn’t go into downtown. So I guess, tell me about some of the different tours.

[00:06:09] Marlo Harrington: Sure. So we have two that include food. The first one is called Tacos and taps. And the other one is burgers and brews. And so both of them start at the brewery, I cannot say enough kind words about Deep River Brewery and their support for our business, as well as just being good to be in our community.

[00:06:28] Marlo Harrington: They’re a great business to partner with. So we start there, typically what a tour, what you would look like as we start, we give a little safety speech to make sure that people know how to ride the bikes. We teach them about e-bikes, teach them about different classifications of e-bikes, for example, and then we have them do a couple of practice rounds around the parking lot.

[00:06:48] Marlo Harrington: Because sometimes people think they know how to ride a bike and we just need to double-check before we hit the highway.

[00:06:54] David Harrington: We had somebody go out on a bike, small size, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but we had somebody go out on a bike, they started doing their practice [00:07:00] laps, about three laps in, she goes, how do I stop this thing?

[00:07:04] David Harrington: And we go the brakes, she was, where are the brakes? Like god, we ran over there it was it was wild. So we made sure to include where the brakes are from that point forward that was a scary moment. But anyway, keep going.

[00:07:14] Marlo Harrington: Yeah, so we start at the brewery and we make sure everyone’s fitted and ready to go. We provide helmets and talk about that safety, give instructions, and then we head on out of the brewery and make it to our first stop, which is actually the local cemetery, the historic cemetery in downtown Clayton, the city cemetery.

[00:07:32] Marlo Harrington: So that’s a good part of where we are able to check in on people as far as how the bikes are feeling and safety, and then also begin the fun history.

[00:07:42] Marlo Harrington: So, after we stop there and I don’t want to give away too much of the history, but some real interesting facts and people who are residing there currently will say and it also is just a neat place to be in Clayton because you can see certain areas [00:08:00] of the town, such as the corner of O’Neill and Front Street.

[00:08:03] Marlo Harrington: And that is very much where our town began because that’s where stalling stations were and that’s what the town of Clayton once was called.

[00:08:12] Marlo Harrington: So we talk about that and kind of educate people. And then we get back on our way and we head on down to our next stop, which is at the Clayton spinning mill. So then we talk about the history of textiling and Clayton and give the history on that building as well as textiling in North Carolina. And from there we leave and we head on for lunch.

[00:08:32] Marlo Harrington: So we, you know, if we go for tacos that day, we go to El Patron, which if you guys have not gone there, has amazing food, I am biased cause I am from California. So I feel like I have a good taste for Mexican food and it is really delicious.

[00:08:49] Marlo Harrington: And then we also for our other stop when we’re doing the burgers and brews, we stop at Vinson’s and again, great local business partner and also a lot of fun history in that building because [00:09:00] it’s a historic site in Clayton.

[00:09:02] Marlo Harrington: After that, we load on up and we head downtown and then we leave our way onto the Greenway. But we stopped first at the very beginning, which is at Legend Park. So we talk a bit about safety on the trail and being respectful to others and as well as educating people on the trail, as far as how long it is, how long it took to build, how much money it costs to build all that sort of stuff.

[00:09:29] Marlo Harrington: Then we head on out again and we ride for quite a way on the greenway. We end up on one of the bridges on the greenway that goes over the Neuse River, which is again another talking point. Where we talk about the Neuse River, the wildlife in the Neuse River, the contaminants entering the Neuse River, and educate people on the progress that we’ve made in helping to clean up the river.

[00:09:53] David Harrington: As well as population growth and like all that we’ve seen in the area, yeah.

[00:09:57] Marlo Harrington: Yeah, the population growth and how it affects our environment. [00:10:00] Turn on around and we go, head on back with one more stop, where we talk about the Native Americans that once lived in Johnston County. And then we also talk about nothing else, but liquor.

[00:10:13] David Harrington: Best of Johnson County Baby.

[00:10:14] Jonathan Breeden: Well, Johnson County. Johnson County has got a history with Moon Shining and that kind of stuff. So,

[00:10:20] David Harrington: How NASCAR came to be as well.

[00:10:22] Jonathan Breeden: Well, and Percy Flowers, and there’s a lot of,

[00:10:25] David Harrington: Give anything away, but he, there.

[00:10:25] Jonathan Breeden: There’s a lot of stories that Johnson County.

[00:10:27] Marlo Harrington: And all around, and all throughout the trip we’re checking in with people, making sure that everyone’s comfortable and safe daycare leads. the group.

[00:10:35] Marlo Harrington: So they follow him and I’m at the very back so that way, if there’s people who are less comfortable going faster, I’m back there with them. And we all end up in the same place. We also have a book that we carry with us to show pictures. We’re able to show historical pictures of what it used to look like compared to what it looks like now.

[00:10:52] Marlo Harrington: And then we weave our way back to the brewery. And of course, end with beer.

[00:10:55] David Harrington: With a little beer in the middle too, you know, we want to make sure you guys have samples.

[00:10:58] Jonathan Breeden: Right. So that tour [00:11:00] is three, four hours.

[00:11:01] David Harrington: Three hours long,

[00:11:02] Jonathan Breeden: Three hours long. And then there is a tour that is just the greenway.

[00:11:07] David Harrington: Yes.

[00:11:07] Jonathan Breeden: The mountains, the green sea trail.

[00:11:09] David Harrington: Yup.

[00:11:09] Jonathan Breeden: And that one’s two hours long. Is it covered the same part as the other one or is it a different part of the trail?

[00:11:15] David Harrington: So the two-hour tour is a different part of the trail. It starts on Cover Bridge Road at the trailhead right there. And goes down in the direction of Raleigh beautiful scenery down there really nice, long, white fences, wide open fields really nice, just rolling pastures and beautiful skyline and it’s really more focused on the scenery.

[00:11:35] David Harrington: Now, granted, the burgers and brews tour, as well as our ghost tour, we’ll talk about that in a minute, but all of it goes in the Greenway, and Greenway Inherently is really pretty.

[00:11:44] David Harrington: You can’t find an ugly spot on the greenway, but if you really want some of the most beautiful scenery and picturesque, almost postcard bridges with the trees around it, and like, especially in sort of the fall season where there’s like the foliage is starting to change, it does not get any [00:12:00] better than the scenery tour. It’s beautiful.

[00:12:01] Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Oh, that sounds cool. And for those of y’all listening, if you want to hear more about the construction of the mountains and sea trail and the future of it and the extension of it, go back and listen to Adrian O’Neill, who was on the best of Johnston County podcast. back in January of 2024.

[00:12:19] Jonathan Breeden: And we talked about the mountains of the sea trail and it’s a you know, kind of how it came to be and its future, I think you’ll find that fast, and it’s gonna they’re not done with it and it’s going continue to be built probably the next maybe for the rest of my life. I mean, right? I mean, but, I mean, it’s not done. And so, but the area around Clayton really is beautiful.

[00:12:41] Jonathan Breeden: So, all right. So then there is a ghost tour, which is new.

[00:12:46] David Harrington: We’re proud of this one.

[00:12:47] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. I’m afraid of ghosts, but all right. Yeah. So

[00:12:51] David Harrington: We love all our tours, but this is our newest one. And we’ve got a couple of sort of cool surprises. Like, the party trick and the fun trick that the food and drink tours have is that they’ve got food and drink [00:13:00] on them.

[00:13:00] David Harrington: And there’s some really cool history and scenery involved as well, but there’s a few wild party tricks on the ghost tour. That is a lot of fun and is pretty surprising to people. It’s not, you know, It’s nothing wild, it’s nothing like boo scary or anything like that.

[00:13:14] David Harrington: So if you’re the type of person that doesn’t like scary movies, you’d be fine on this tour, but we have a couple of really neat surprises that I don’t want to divulge here, but it’s worth it.

[00:13:24] Jonathan Breeden: So where does the ghost tour go?

[00:13:25] Marlo Harrington: It starts on the Art to Heart Trail, so it starts at the Raleigh Art Museum, and that’s where we begin the tour, and again, similar fashion as the Clayton, making sure that people can ride bikes and everyone’s safe.

[00:13:37] Marlo Harrington: And then we have, you know, some stops around there where we talk about the history of Raleigh and the area, such as the Art Museum, for example, is built on an ancient Indian burial ground.

[00:13:47] Marlo Harrington: So that helps with, you know, sharing some of the hauntings and explaining some of the activity in that area. So we share stories that involve history because we can’t have hauntings without history. We continue on to the [00:14:00] trail. We make a stop at Meredith College. Meredith College is one of the most known haunted campuses in the United States, actually, which some people are unaware of that.

[00:14:10] Marlo Harrington: So we talk about some of the hauntings and why the history behind that, and then from there we continue on and we go to Dorothea Dix.

[00:14:19] Marlo Harrington: Dorothea Dix, there’s some stories to be told, it has several names, Raleigh State Hospital, the Insane Asylum of Raleigh, Dorothea Dix Hospital, Dix Hill.

[00:14:32] Marlo Harrington: So talk about the history of there, that involves Civil War, that involves being our first mental health hospital here in North Carolina.

[00:14:40] Marlo Harrington: And so, you know, some of the tragedies that happened there when people thought they were doing the right reason for mental health, which, of course, is close to my heart because I work in mental health. So sharing some of that history and some of the hauntings that come from that.

[00:14:56] Jonathan Breeden: So is that a night tour?

[00:14:57] David Harrington: Well, we can’t do it at [00:15:00] night for safety reasons because we’ve got to make sure everybody stays safe. It would be too risky to do if it was a full blackout, but we do it a little closer to the evening. So it’s a little cooler first and second when it starts getting, it’s going to get dark a little more in the September, October range. So it’ll be more dusk.

[00:15:15] David Harrington: We just have to make sure there’s some light for safety reasons but trust me, it’s creepy. It’s fun.

[00:15:21] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, Dorothy Dix Hospital, creepy.

[00:15:23] David Harrington: If you haven’t been there, if you haven’t walked by it, everyone out there in podcast land, if you haven’t gone by there it’s creepy just walking through it and walking around it and seeing the outside in daylight.

[00:15:31] Jonathan Breeden: It is creepy. And they’re gonna build a beautiful park there. And it’s going to be a beautiful park whenever they get it done. I don’t know exactly when, I know they’ve started working on a little bit but I know the city of Raleigh plans to make that really a destination park similar to Central Park in New York City, not the size of Central Park, but something like that.

[00:15:50] Jonathan Breeden: I mean, a lot of different stuff.

[00:15:51] David Harrington: It’s a really big, really cool park. That’s where they do the fireworks and all that stuff. I mean, it’s pretty cool. But the insane asylum piece is wild. That’s a great story that [00:16:00] comes out of there. All true stories.

[00:16:02] Jonathan Breeden: I can imagine. And now.

[00:16:04] David Harrington: Some are graves.

[00:16:05] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And so for those of you are wondering, the state mental health hospital is now in Butner, North Carolina down the street from the federal prison in Butner. And I’ve had a chance to visit, you know, being a family law attorney, I’ve had a chance to visit the new hospital in Butner. It is modern and I’d be going to be in a hospital, nice.

[00:16:25] Jonathan Breeden: And I’ve had a chance to visit the prison in Butner, which had Bernie Madoff and other famous prisoners. I think maybe right now R. Kelly might be there. He was there at one point.

[00:16:36] Jonathan Breeden: So, yeah. So anyway. So, right. So anyway, but that’s where the state hospital is now. It’s in Butler, North Carolina.

[00:16:43] Jonathan Breeden: So it’s not at Dorothea Dix anymore, but just looking at Dorothea Dix hospital. It’s a spooky-looking building. So I can imagine that your tour is spooky enough. Just being there.

[00:16:53] David Harrington: If you’ve ever seen like one flew over the cuckoo’s nest or nurse ratchet, those old early 1900s, [00:17:00] late 1800s, insane asylums with like the straight jackets and the padded rooms and people like rocking back and forth. That’s Dorothea Dix.

[00:17:06] Jonathan Breeden: Right. There’s no doubt about that. So, well, that’s cool. So, when do these tours run? I mean, y’all both have Real jobs right now. This may replace it, but like this may replace it, but it’s not replaced it yet. So when are the tours available?

[00:17:20] David Harrington: Every weekend? We run some kind of tour. We run usually a couple of tours a week, and most of them fall on the weekends. We also do them occasionally on Thursday evenings, but we can work with people, we’re flexible, and we have fairly flexible job schedules.

[00:17:34] David Harrington: So if anybody’s interested in doing a tour, just shoot us an email and we can work something out with you and try to work around your guys’ schedule or whatever schedule.

[00:17:41] Jonathan Breeden: Okay, cool. And these tours cost, they’re very reasonably priced.

[00:17:45] David Harrington: Yeah. They start at 59 bucks. The scenic tour is 59 bucks. And then they go up to 99, our highest one is 99 for the food and drink tours, but they include food and drink also.

[00:17:56] David Harrington: So it’s really a good value. You’re going to get a little bit of beer or on the [00:18:00] taco store, margaritas, which are fantastic at the Patron restaurant. If you’re a margarita fan, it’s like top shelf. So we include all that in the price of the tour and the ghost tour is 69.

[00:18:10] Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well, that’s, I mean, that’s great. It really looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, I need to do it. I don’t, I think I can run an e-bike, but I will have to, yeah. I mean, it’s been a long time.

[00:18:21] Jonathan Breeden: So I rode a bike already. I’ve never ridden an e-bike, so I will have to definitely take the lesson in the parking lot. How do you stop this thing? Right?

[00:18:28] David Harrington: So that’s not ridden an e-bike. It just helps a little bit with the pedaling. So if you can ride a regular bike, you can ride an e-bike, and if you don’t really like to pedal.

[00:18:39] David Harrington: If you’re a little, maybe out of shape and you don’t really, you’re not really feeling it. It’s got a throttle, like a moped. So you don’t even have to pedal. It just goes so super easy.

[00:18:48] Jonathan Breeden: Well, cool. And one thing y’all were talking about before we started recording, you’re going to maybe start doing some group biking for some, maybe some mental health.

[00:18:55] Marlo Harrington: Yeah. So we’ve come up with the idea and it’s moving [00:19:00] into a plan. So I’ve done years of group therapy for substance use treatment as well as women’s groups. And at some point in time, I’ve done some in groups as well. And so what we would like to do for our County is to do a women’s group to where we would take the e-bikes on the trail.

[00:19:19] Marlo Harrington: And so that way we’re connecting people with nature as well as stopping on the trail for check-ins some group therapy for woman to woman and being able to really support one another.

[00:19:31] Marlo Harrington: So my hopes are that we’ll be able to do that on a Thursday. So we’d be doing a Thursday night women’s group. It’s what we’re planning on doing.

[00:19:38] Marlo Harrington: And then, some of the proceeds we would like to donate to Harbor House, which is for abused and battered. It’s a domestic violence program here in Johnston County.

[00:19:49] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. Harbor House is great. We’ve talked about them in previous episodes. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get somebody on from them. I’ve worked with them for many years.

[00:19:57] Jonathan Breeden: They do a great job of providing a place [00:20:00] for women to go who don’t have a place to go. They also provide counseling for women who are in domestic violence relationships on how to get out, and how to stay out of these relationships, they also provide some vocational training and some job skills.

[00:20:12] Jonathan Breeden: They work closely with Johnston County Department of Social Services to do that. It’s a tremendous group, they have a 24-hour high harbor. They have a 24-hour crisis. Phone line and a 24-hour shelter that you can go to that. It’s safe. It’s HarborShelter.org. It’s a tremendous organization here in Johnston County.

[00:20:30] Jonathan Breeden: And people, a lot of them know because they had the stores where they used to sell, resell the clothes and stuff like that. I don’t know if they still have those. They may still have one in Clayton, but I’m not sure.

[00:20:40] Jonathan Breeden: So, where they would take donations and they would sell the clothes and they would use that money to help fund the shelter.

[00:20:45] Jonathan Breeden: So yeah, the Harbor is a tremendous group here in Johnston County and does a great job. And I’m a big supporter of theirs. So how would people be able to, I mean y’all do these tours year seasonal?

[00:20:57] David Harrington: It’s a bit seasonal. It’s no fun when it’s freezing cold when everybody is just a little bit [00:21:00] miserable. Easier to do in the summer in August it’s hot, but i 40 degrees, it feels way cooler. It’s not

[00:21:07] David Harrington: as much fun in the winter. We stop really at the end of October. So like Halloween is our last run. And then we start back up on March 1st.

[00:21:16] Jonathan Breeden: Okay. All right. Cool. And how would people reach out to y’all to book one of these tours?

[00:21:20] David Harrington: Best way to do it. Go to our website, www.com.Triangle/Adventures.com and you can always go to our Instagram or you can our Instagram is just at Triangle Adventures our Facebook is actually at RTP Adventures. Go figure if anybody can help us fix that.

[00:21:37] Jonathan Breeden: All right. Well, that’s cool. So there’s lots of different ways to get in touch with you and these tours are for up to 10 people.

[00:21:44] David Harrington: Yes.

[00:21:44] Jonathan Breeden: Can’t be more than 10?

[00:21:46] David Harrington: Correct. Yeah, if when we get a line of 10 people in the group, it’s quite a long line and we just need to make sure everyone’s safe.

[00:21:52] David Harrington: So for that reason, for safety reasons, we have to cap it at 10.

[00:21:55] Jonathan Breeden: Right? And this is good for I was thinking about taking my leadership team. So it’s good for [00:22:00] corporate outings, birthday parties.

[00:22:02] David Harrington: Bachelor parties, team builders.

[00:22:06] Jonathan Breeden: Family,

[00:22:06] David Harrington: Yeah. Come to town, family outings, even just couples and dates of people to sign up, that’s great for anybody. You know, get outside, make memories. We have a lot of great scenic sort of photo-op moments that are really fun out there.

[00:22:21] David Harrington: So just something new and different to do and it’s totally safe. It’s totally fun. And if you haven’t ridden a bike in a while, it’s totally fun.

[00:22:27] Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And it’s, you have to be at least 13 years old, correct?

[00:22:29] David Harrington: Yup. 13 years old. And you have to be able to like, be semi-competent on a bike. You can’t just have never ridden a bike in your whole life as a 13-year-old and jump on the e-bikes and go.

[00:22:40] David Harrington: They are a little bit heavy. We just gotta make sure everyone’s safe.

[00:22:42] Marlo Harrington: Which makes me want to mention, because even though our focus is food and drinks on the food and drinks tour, you do not have to consume alcohol if you choose not to, we also can provide mocktails or just a soda because not everybody drinks.

[00:22:57] David Harrington: And vegetarian options are available as well for all [00:23:00] the drinks. So nonalcoholic and vegetarian options are available. If you just come out for like the hangout and the history and the greenway and the scenery, we have lots of people that do that.

[00:23:08] David Harrington: So don’t be put off by the potential for beer or whatever, like we can substitute anything.

[00:23:13] Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s cool.

[00:23:14] Jonathan Breeden: Well, the last question we ask everybody on the Best of Johnston County podcast, what do you love most about Johnston County? And each of you gets to answer.

[00:23:21] David Harrington: You’ve been here for 20 years though.

[00:23:23] Marlo Harrington: So I have to say it is the greenway. I’ve been here so long that I’ve watched it develop. I used to go on there before it was paved and run with my dog and like climb across bridges not set up yet to get to the other side.

[00:23:40] Marlo Harrington: So I’ve watched this greenway from its birth. And I just love the fact that we have it here. I think it’s a great resource for all of us here in Johnston County to get out and exercise and appreciate nature. So by far, that is my favorite part of being here.

[00:23:57] Jonathan Breeden: All right. Mountain to the sea trail, [00:24:00] that’s awesome. It really is great. What’s your favorite part about Johnson County?

[00:24:03] David Harrington: Besides the Greenway, which I also love a huge fan of it. But I mean, I came from New York and New York is so different than here. And I love the contrast of being having a sort of small town. We live in Clayton.

[00:24:16] David Harrington: So small town with an old soul. And although it’s growing a lot, it’s still miles different than New York. So I appreciate the sort of slightly more laid-back culture, just kind of down-home feeling is I’m a member of the chamber of commerce. I just appreciate it. Don’t get me started on the New York Chamber of Commerce.

[00:24:37] David Harrington: It’s just a mad house. It’s just so much better. So much more stress-free. I just love living in a little house.

[00:24:43] Jonathan Breeden: Well, and that’s how we met, was through the Clayton Chamber of Commerce. And Dana Wooten, who was on a previous episode. I’m not sure which order the episodes are on, we’ve recorded an episode with Dana Wooten.

[00:24:51] Jonathan Breeden: So she may have already run when this one runs, or maybe not. But definitely find that one. I think you’ll find it fascinating. Dana Wooten and I’ve been friends for a very long time and she’s [00:25:00] done a great job with the Clayton Chamber of Commerce.

[00:25:02] Jonathan Breeden: And that’s a great way to network. If you’re a small business owner or you want to know more people in the community is to go to several of their events and now they’re having events in Cleveland which is where my primary office is.

[00:25:12] Jonathan Breeden: And we met at the Cleveland draft house a few weeks ago. That was a ton of fun. Yeah, right. Now the Cleveland crowd house is great. Scott Joseph and them do it, do an excellent job there, and have some.

[00:25:21] Jonathan Breeden: Well, we’d like to thank Triangle Adventures for coming on and being our guest on today’s episode of the Best of Johnston County Podcast.

[00:25:28] Jonathan Breeden: As we mentioned earlier, if you would do us the favor of following, liking, and subscribing to this podcast wherever you see it, and share this podcast with your friends on Instagram or your other social media. People you know, give a shout-out to Triangle Ventures down at the bottom.

[00:25:43] Jonathan Breeden: We’ll definitely get them we’ll make sure they see all the comments that are made about their business and give them a call. I think it’s fascinating, I’m glad this has come to Clayton and I’m trying to bring more interesting guests that are maybe not the most traditional guests to this so you can know about other types of businesses in Johnston County.

[00:25:59] Jonathan Breeden: So keep [00:26:00] listening. We’re going to have more and more of these interesting guests in the future. Until next time, I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.