This is Gap Creek in Tennessee...not very big but was it ever a fun place to play when I was a kid. Two or three summers my nephew spent the summer with us. I think we played in this creek ever single day, unless it was raining too much or something. We caught crawdads and muscles, skipped rocks, shot b-b guns, and stayed cool while doing it. This creek never got even a hint of warmness to the water, even though it was quite small.

And at the watering gap for the cattle, on the neighbor's bank of the creek, there was a big uprooted sycamore tree. I have no idea how big it actually was, but in my mind I remember it as huge. We would take snacks and climb out on it and eat, and laugh and watch the neighbor's black angus cattle.
Our girls did not have access to a creek this good as they grew up, at least not every day. But we did spend a lot of time at the creek pictured below. We fished and they waded and fished some. Every summer we bought one of the cheap wading pools for toddlers and it set in our backyard. The girls would bring home crawdads, pumpkin seed bluegills, and tadpoles and have some all summer long, or until a coon would discover them.