I also had a Travel Bug disappear for 2 1/2 years and then show up again without explanation. But in the meantime, I had launched a replacement on the spare TB tag. So I contacted the cacher who had the replacement and he kindly mailed it back to me.
With two TBs out there actively traveling the logs can become pretty convoluted!
I will try to move this one on soon and place it in a safe cache. But let me know soon if you would prefer I mail it back to you.