Thanks for the responses.

My readings are very tough to be certain of, to be honest. I am not color blind, but both of the strips I started out with use shades of colors that my strips do not seem to really match. The FC, TC, and CH are fairly easy to read, and I think I have a reasonable read on TA, but pH and CYA are unreadable for me. The Walmart kit seems useless for CL readings as it seems to read everything as 5+ (including the tap water I tested it on), however I got good readings on pH (and verified them by using tap water and by adding very small amounts of dry acid to the tap water to force the pH lower.

Thus, here are my best guesstimates from what I can measure and read:

FC = 3-5
TC = 3-5
pH = ~8.0
TA = ~100
CH = ~100
CYA = 20 - 50

I am estimating the CYA based on the fact that it seems to read lower than 50 on the strips, but that I have used a dozen or so tri-chlor tabs since opening the pool, so I know there is some CYA in the pool.

How critical is it to lower pH before Monday or Tuesday? I would like to have real readings and do this right, but if there is a significant risk to my equipment by waiting 2 - 4 days, I will go ahead and assume my numbers are close, and use the Pool Calculator to aim for 7.6, figuring that if I am off a bit, I should still be in the 7.2 - 7.8 range.

To answer the other questions --
the pool does not smell like chlorine to me. However, I have been using a solar cover to supplement my heater, and it has a little bit of a chlorine smell when I pull it off. My pool is 15 feet from a line of trees and we get debris from the trees in the pool alot. I skim and vacuum the pool nearly every day and it is clear as a bell, but I would not swear that I get particle. Would the chlorine be working on that stuff at night and the CC not be able to escape until I remove the cover? Would that explain the light chlorine smell on the cover but that there is none later when we are ready to swim?

(Edited by Watermom to combine both of your posts.)