Not fun, but potentially you could drive, spend the day there cleaning and do your checkin and drive back the next day for $200-$300-$400 if you had to do it to save your December rental and your five star reviews.I'd say don't over complicate investments.   

In terms of what you need to do to get an STR up and running (self-managing of course), please see below:Purchase furnishings and suppliesSet everything up yourself or hire a local crewSource all your vendors (utilities, internet, pool care, lawn care, pest control, STR insurance, plumber, electrical, and the most important 3, photographer, handyman, and cleaning crew)Create your listings on Airbnb, VRBO, etc.Set up your PMS tool (Guesty or OwnerRez are two popular ones)Set up your pricing tool (Wheelhouse and Pricelabs are two popular ones)Ask friends and family to stay at your place for free in exchange for early feedback and 5-star ratingsGrow your bookings from there!

Plan is to build a rock star team out of state to help acquire, rehab, and manage the property.

The stars will never align.

I looked at a few properties in Hopewell and always seemed to never get the stars to align.

There are tons of Lone Star state residents on here that I am sure will chime in as well.

They got home and wrote up a 1 star review because we didn't give them the full refund they wanted.  

It also depends on amenities, quality of property, cleanliness, number of 5-star reviews and other things. 

Wow...Just looked at the Zestimate accuracy page and see that the Kansas City market only has 1 out of 5 stars for accuracy.

The combination of building a solid foundation, then dreaming of the stars, then combining intelligence, guts and grit to achieve an amazing goal.