"Is @amosbastian's screen shot, in the Step 3 - Installing steem-python area, using a local copy of the blockchain?"
I don't think so. I think he actually is using the same API endpoint, but it is being set globally via some env variable I might imagine which gets set by running the following with the steempy CLI tool:

venv) $ steempy set nodes https://api.steemit.com

I'm also still trying to figure out where to find a bootstrapped version of the blockchain. Have a look at the script here: https://github.com/steemit/steem-python/blob/master/docs/examples.rst mentioned at:"Syncing Blockchain to a Flat File" I'm not sure if that is the same, it seems to sync the blockchain to one big json file so I don't think that is the same, but worth checking it out.
Thanks for your support!