Thanks @dino … Yes, I can link to a gallery from my post. I guess I was being a bit greedy in wanting to have the beautiful gallery show up in my post as an embedded series of thumbnails. I also wanted the thumbnails to open into a cool light box. Oh, and no laborious editing of photos or thumbnails.
I think a link to a Pixelfed gallery will be sufficient for me. I also get the benefit of the photos being on that platform, too.
A lot of this is new to me, and making me rethink my previous assumptions from self-hosting. Part of the fun here is learning new things and pushing my boundaries a little. I like it.