LA River Clean up

My name is Vanessa Acosta from English 101 Professor Ximena Hernandez Class. Yesterday morning I had a great experience cleaning the la river. I expected to be cleaning along the river and expected to see trash in the river and cleaning that up but I had a great experience cleaning like in the woods. In order to enjoy my time there I had my friend Steven tag along and we formed a group with Naomi, Carmelo and Brandon, and I must say we all had a great time and enjoyed the day picking up trash. All five of us were on a mission on finding money but that was unsuccessful. Once I started the clean up, I noticed that I was picking up a lot of plastic bags and made me think if all the plastic I was throwing away was ending up here. I picked up a lot of Capri suns and cup of noodles cups. I also went in a little corner that looked like a kids playground with kids toys and a child's jacket which made me wonder if there was a child living there. Thinking of that made me also wonder if I was invading someone's home. I expected to be picking up trash like paper, plastic bags, wrappers but instead I was picking up beer bottles, alcohol bottles, food, bags of chips, I also picked up a women's purse and saw a lot of shopping carts especially from target. I also noticed there was a lot of golf balls which made me wonder how did they get there. I also noticed like small caves put together with boxes and clothing items on the ground.  I normally am not an outdoorsy person but this clean up made me want to become more involved and want to continue cleaning up not just the la river but also local parks. As our day continued, my group and I heard a loud sound like a waterfall sound which lead us to want to go see where that sound was coming from and we saw the la river up close and it was beautiful. I expected a river with no water and trees everywhere but it was nothing close to my expectations. The water was running through the river and the water looked fresh and made me want to take a dive. All the walking and picking up trash was worth the view of the water. My friend along the way found a  strange painting with weird lettering and he thought it was so different and interesting, he decided to take the painting with him. I thought to myself, " who knew that picking up trash would lead to my friend wanting to keep this painting "? This experience was an eye opener on how involved we should be and aware that Los Angeles does have nature. I honestly did not think that the LA river would have much water or nature but going down to the woods and being around all the trees and the smell od dirt made me see how Los Angles is full of nature. The LA river even had ducks swimming through the river. Seeing the ducks made the La river feel more like nature and made it feel a more enjoyable experience. I really enjoyed this la river clean up and I'm glad I had great friends to experience it with.