I am back in! Of course, after a total wipe and reflash. If you are new to this, like I am, this is what to do to get restarted. There is apparently no way to recover a lost password, so a total restart is required. Don’t waste lots of time trying.
1-Pull the power plug to RasPi
2-Remove SSD from RasPi, reformat to Ext4 format
3-Remove mSD card from RasPi, reformat it.
4-Reflash OS to mSD with Balena Etcher
5-Reinstall SSD and mSD
6-Reinstall power to RasPi
7-Wait 5 minutes or more and log back in.
8-Go through set up process again
9-Once back in and up and running, my suggestion is to log out and back in to make sure you have the password correct. If all good, congrats!
10-Don’t forget your password!