We present the first results from our NASA Keck Observatory Database of Ionized Absorbers toward Quasars (KODIAQ) survey which aims to characterize the properties of the highly ionized gas of galaxies and their circumgalactic medium (CGM) at 2 < z < 4. We found 20 absorbers that satisfy these rules: 7 Lyman limit systems (LLSs), 8 super-LLSs (SLLSs) and 5 damped Ly alpha (DLAs). The LLSs and SLLSs with no O VI absorption have properties consistent with those seen in cosmological simulations tracing cold streams feeding galaxies. When the highly ionized (Si IV and O VI) gas is taken into account, we determine that the tau sub(LL) > 1 absorbers could contain as much as 3%-14% of the cosmic baryon budget at z ~ 2-3, only second to the Ly alpha forest. We conservatively show that 5%-20% of the metals ever produced at z ~ 2-3 are in form of highly ionized metals ejected in the CGM of galaxies.