I feel like I’m missing something obvious, but so far I haven’t found it.
Nevermind, Uncle, Wordpress.
I got Wordpress installed in 3 minutes, but then remembered why I still don’t like it and went back to work installing Grav, my problem is my server is running PHP Version 5.4.30.
I hope this helps someone.
I followed the instructions found here to check my version.
https://www.arclab.com/en/kb/php/how-to-check-php-installed-detect-php-version.html
You may be able to change what version you are running, in my case, I’m able to change it in cpanel
Grav requires PHP 5.6, and if your host/system supports this you can add a handler in .htaccess to enforce this. For example, my host supports 5.x and 7.x, and a handler allows me to use 7.x for Grav with a simple line in .htaccess.
As Gingah said, you need to ask the hosting provider how to update the PHP version, which is outdated.
Ah, thanks. I was able to update PHP to version 5.5.12 in cpanel, but that was the highest available. In the listed Grav requirements it stated 5.5.9 was the minimum version required-- does it need a version later than 5.5.12? From what you are both saying it sounds like that is still the problem.
Grav still isn’t functioning although I think my host is now meeting stated minimum requirements.
Per the requirements 5.5.12 should work. Are you running Grav from the folder grav? If so, you probably need to make sure RewriteBase is set to /grav in .htaccess.
5.5.12 is higher than 5.5.9 (just saying because I’ve already heard people confused about this).
What error do you have now?
Gingah, thank for the tip on Rewritebase, I added that. I’ve been a bit confused about if I should run it out of the Grav folder, or move the contents to public_html, so your comment helps solve that question.
Flaviocopes, I’m getting a 403 error, I edited the system.yaml file to try to fix the 403 error, but that didn’t do it.
Hmm, I’ve been deleting everything starting fresh, have a 500 error now. I’m an industrial designer, not a developer, and may be in over my head with this CMS. It looks great though!
Thank you both for the help. I’ll come back to this once I no longer feel like smashing my computer 
Depending on the server where you put it, it might be more or less tricky, depending on how it’s set up, for reasons that are outside Grav’s control.
This page helps with common 500 error causes.