Truckee has some tight STR laws and if you're in that game I'd stay.  

Don't play the blame game.

Howdy, I have been in the game for about 10 years now and have mid seven figures of real estate assets. 

Learn everything about real estate like it's your favorite video game and show your wife how passionate you are and how much you believe in real estate.

Then connect with some hard money lenders (you can find some here on BP as well as some who are typing this right now) and connect with them to understand their product type, what they like to lend on and requirements.Hard money broker is all numbers game of making relationships and helping those that are looking for financing, it starts out slow but if you get with a few good borrowers and lenders it can be pretty decent money to be made.As an example we paid six figures last year to HM brokers. 

Thank you Nick - unfortunately it is the name of the game in this space that there will be people with bad experiences, typically when the appraised value doesn't come in as what they expect and they lash out at the lender accordingly (anyone in this space obviously understands this occurrence). 

I am playing a long game.

It could take years of sacrifice and saving to get into this game and most people don't want to wait that long.  

After reading so many intros of young, single, eager individuals, I'm hoping I'm not too late to the game! 

If you don't/won't have WiFi then you should either consider a SimpliSafe system that you can move around from house to house, or some type of Trail cameras like hunters use for identifying game areas.