Things to Do in Clayton

When each of Learn To Shoot North Carolina's NRA-certified instructors held his first gun, he was also embracing an inherent part of who he is. Instructors spent their childhoods shooting sporting clays and hunting before transferring their marksmanship skills to careers in law enforcement or the armed forces. Through Learn To Shoot North Carolina's assemblage of courses, instructors help pupils familiarize themselves with various firearms and earn NRA certification. Their shooting range hones marksmen's skills as they practice with their own handguns or rented pieces. Learn to Shoot also offers recreational activities, such as Zombie Smash, where hunters step into the surrounding forest, firing at cutouts of zombies while trying to forget about the pet zombie they helped raise on their uncle's farm.

Within Tag Ur It’s family-owned indoor play center, youngsters glide down slides, rock atop spring horses, and leap about in bounce houses. After emerging from the inflatable obstacle course, kids scamper off to the arcade to battle fictional opponents or challenge their less-pixilated playmates to rounds on the mini-golf course, bouts in the laser-tag arena, and bean-bag flinging at the corn-hole station. Along with open-play sessions, Tag Ur It accommodates guests with a trio of birthday-party packages where up 20 children can enjoy a two-hour party block.

The Yoga Connection defines spirit as the indefinable energy within us all that allows us to connect with the world around us. This inclusive studio seeks to strengthen that energy by improving physical health and mental clarity through the practice of yoga. Over the past five years, The Yoga Connection’s amiable and supportive instructors have lent their individual training styles to create a varied series of courses that teach the prolonged postures and breathing exercises of the Hatha discipline. Suitable for participants of any fitness level, courses cater to specific needs such as those of seniors, expectant mothers, and those unable to unfold themselves from human-pretzel routines.

In addition to helping students to achieve mental focus through physical expression, instructors delve into the inner-workings of the mind and its effect on habits through mindful-awareness meditation. This newly focused mind can be put to work learning how to teach the craft during the 200-hour yoga certification program. As cherries on the top of its ice-cream sundae of services, The Yoga Connection also offers massage therapy or nutritional advice from its onsite registered dietician, advice that includes not putting cherries on everything.

Shrouded in groves of leafless trees, Darkside Haunted Estates looms ominously. Dilapidated black shutters hang from the two-story house's white, weather-beaten siding, and behind its black door, nightmares have stirred to life for more than two decades. Throughout its eerie grounds, the staff has installed dynamic special effects on a collection of attractions that has ballooned to more than a dozen, including a quarter-mile haunted trail and a backwoods hayride. Unsettling sites tell the estate's sordid story through the Darkside Mortuary, Rottenkorr Cemetery, and The Orphanage. They’ve also installed a "Fame of Shame" board, which keeps track of visitors who bail early and of monsters who faint at the sight of their own fake blood.