I worked a job where we cleaned up freeway medians and escapements.

You honestly would be surprised at how much loose cash is just on the side of the freeway. Split among four co-workers, in a three month period, we found over $600+ between us. We used to joke it was like getting "tips" for picking up trash.

Also, lots of stolen items get "ditched." I heard a story from a former co-worker that last year someone found an in-box Nintendo Switch, and they ended up bringing it to work every day to play on downtime.

The biggest win though, came years before I was in the program. A twenty-something kid found a gym bag with $10k in it. It was reported to authorities, but since no one was ever able to pinpoint who the owner of the money was, the guy was allowed to keep it. That's the part that surprised me the most, this is a State job, despite being seasonal, and I honestly expected the State to confiscate something that big, but nope, it ended up in the hands of the person who found it. What a payday! I was told this story by the old-timers.

Oh yeah, we also once found the aftermath an Amazon truck that had wrecked so bad the driver had died. We found that out by trying to dig up recent police reports on accidents in the area. The truck was gone but all the packages were still there... It certainly looked like Amazon had no intent to come clean it up, because this was a few days post-accident.

The pulverized remains of what must've been thousands upon thousands of Doritos. A shipping truck must've lost a big box or two, there was orange dust all over the road and bags scattered everywhere.

I know a cop who found a guy who had taken jimson weed (highly highly bad idea) and was shuffling naked down the breakdown lane with a dead chicken tied to his shoes.

I'm not sure if this is actually was I saw, but I briefly spotted what really looked like a dildo on the side of the road. I didn't feel like stopping to take a closer look though.

Yo find strange things on the Autobahn. Which still wonders me the most are single left shoes. And they are pretty common. I mean, how?

I once found a gold bar. That was pretty neat, especially after one year where i was told i became the owner of that die to neglecting from the previous owner.

And one amazing thing was: i was a qualified person at a car accident and helped there. During this i lost my corporate id card. Surprisingly, it was found and sent to the company after 3 years. I was flabbergasted. I still have this id just because of this story.