Ha! I know I say I'm getting there every time but I am getting somewhere.
At this moment I have both the vagrant version of adapt running (displayed at localhost:5000) and the grunt version (displayed at localhost:9001). It feels like I only got it going through sheer luck. It isn't clear to me how I can get both systems running at the same time on the same adapt document (or course I suppose it is) or in the same directory or whatever. In fact when I look at the directory for adapt authoring (localhost:9001) - I see some vagrant files and no directories? Where is the actual adapt-learning instance that shows up at localhost:9001.
Because - I would like to use the vagrant virtual machine (at 9001) for editing the text and adding components but I would like to edit the .less files and recompile it all using the instructions which display the pages at localhost:5000.