In the game
Somewhere in the Leonida Keys there is, according to fans who have gone through Trailer 2 frame by frame, a giant sea creature standing on a plinth beside the highway. Rockstar hasn’t pointed at it or named it, and it’s on screen for less time than it takes to read this sentence, so treat this page as a travel idea rather than a fact about the game.
What the community has settled on is that Leonida’s roadside oddity looks like it draws on the Keys’ real habit of putting enormous fiberglass animals by the road. The most famous of those, by a mile, is Betsy. GTA has always loved Florida’s roadside kitsch, and if the game has a giant lobster, a giant whale or a giant anything on its version of US-1, this is the place it’s riffing on.
The real place
Betsy is a Florida spiny lobster, roughly 30 feet tall and 40 feet long, built out of fiberglass in the mid-1980s by the artist Richard Blaze. She stands in the front lot of Rain Barrel Village, a cluster of artist studios and craft shops under the trees at mile marker 86.7 on Plantation Key, in Islamorada. She has survived several hurricanes, including Irma in 2017, and has become the unofficial welcome sign for the Upper Keys.
Standing under her is the whole experience: she’s absurd, she’s photogenic, and people pull in, take the picture and pull out again all day. The detail a GTA fan will recognize is the setting as much as the sculpture, a giant creature on a plinth, a two-lane road, palms and a strip of gravel parking. It’s exactly the kind of Florida the trailers are so fond of.
Betsy is a lobster, not a whale. The Keys have other roadside giants (Lorelei’s mermaid sign, the marlins mounted outside tackle shops) and any of them could be the reference. That’s why we’re keeping this one at “possible”.
Go there
Rain Barrel is a 20-minute stop on the drive down. Park in the gravel lot, take the photo, then wander the shops behind, which sell local art, jewelry and the sort of hand-painted signs that end up in Keys kitchens. Hours vary by studio, so don’t build a day around it.
Islamorada rewards a longer stay if you have the time. A few miles down you’ll find Theater of the Sea (a marine park that has been here since 1946), the History of Diving Museum at MM 83, and the Hurricane Monument at MM 81.6 for the victims of the 1935 storm that changed the Keys forever. Robbie’s at MM 77.5 lets you hand-feed tarpon off the dock for a few dollars. For lunch or a sunset drink, Lorelei on the bayside at MM 82 is the classic.
One honest warning: the pull-in is right off US-1, and cars come through at 45 mph. Signal early, don’t stop in the road for the photo, and mind the kids in the lot.
Nearby
- Islamorada’s bayside tiki bars: five minutes down the road, and where the afternoon goes.
- The Overseas Highway: Betsy is the first great stop on the drive south.
- Canal homes of the Upper Keys: the residential Keys start right behind the highway here.
Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.